With the exception of Alexandre Tansman's haunting 'Complainte de Nikko' (the third piece in his 1933 set entitled Le tour du Monde en Miniature) and Grainger's 'Arrival Platform Humlet' (the first movement of his In a Nutshell suite, and, like Tansman's miniature, based on the Japanese Miyakobushi pentatonic scale), all this material is new to the catalogue. Henri Gil-Marchex (1894-1970) studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Premier Prix in 1911. Dedicated to Alfred Cortot, his Deux Images du vieux Japon date from 1936 and turn out to be a most pleasing diptych, the writing both fastidious and imaginative. By contrast, the music of Vienna-born Theodor Szanto (1877-1934) assimilates traditional Japanese idioms to more probing effect - as amply rev- ealed by the 1918-22 suite In Japan and Sakura Sakura (the second of two Japanese Melodies taken from Szanto's 1924 opera, Taifun).
Although it's the lengthiest offering here, Walter Niemann's Japan (1923) is also the most charming. A pupil of Humperdinck and Reinecke, Niemann (1887-1953) evidently had a genuine melodic gift, and the five character pieces which make up his Op 89 really do fall most delightfully on the ear. Like Niemann, Cyril Scott also studied with Humperdinck in Frankfurt. His Soiree japonaise of 1907 nods at the uncomplicated, populist style so successfully espoused by Albert Ketelbey, whose winsome From a Japanese Screen makes an endearingly naive closing number. We are also treated to the rousing Japanese march Tokio (1890) by Amsterdam-born but naturalised Englishman Edouard Silas (1827-1909), Saint-Saens's own piano transcription of the overture to his 1872 opera, La princesse jaune (although set in Japan, the composer unwittingly employs Arabian and Chinese characteristics), and the virtuoso antics of the 1907 Etude japonaise by Hungarian Ede Poldini (1869-1957, creator of La poupee valsante, made famous in Fritz Kreisler's arrangement).
The talented Japanese pianist, Noriko Ogawa, proves a consistently stylish and affectionate advocate of some intriguing and appealing repertoire, and she has been handsomely served by the BIS sound-engineers. A strong recommendation.'