APR is launching a fascinating new series of recordings devoted to French pianism called ‘The French Piano School’. As Charles Timbrell writes in his authoritative series essay, ‘For some 150 years a distinctively French piano style was nourished at the Paris Conservatoire’. As Europe’s oldest conservatory, the Conservatoire played a considerable role in making the French capital a mecca for piano-playing and manufacture during the first half of the 19th century. Traditions inculcated at the Conservatoire, valuing clear, precise, rapid execution emanating from the fingers and wrist rather than from the arm and shoulder, along with judicious pedalling, would remain characteristic of the French school well into the 20th century. Of course, some famous French pianists, including Cortot, Marcelle Meyer and Yves Nat, are already well represented on CD. The aim of the APR series is to present important figures whose recordings are less well known outside France.

Marius-François Gaillard’s Debussy recordings from 1928 30 are of historical significance. Gaillard was the first pianist to publicly perform all of Debussy’s then-known piano music and he did this in 1920, two years after the composer’s death, repeating the cycle a number of times in subsequent years. Perhaps most striking is his surprisingly sparse use of both rubato and pedal in these performances. And while some of his tempos seem spot-on, others (‘Reflets dans l’eau’, ‘La soirée dans Grenade’ and ‘La cathédrale engloutie’, for instance) sound rushed. During the 1930s Gaillard turned increasingly to conducting and composition, and his contributions as a pianist receded in popular memory.

Even less well known is the Marguerite Long pupil Carmen-Marie-Lucie Guilbert, represented here by four pieces by Debussy, five by Fauré (her recording of the Thème et variations is apparently the first) and Ravel’s ‘Alborada del gracioso’. Guilbert was also a noted jazz and popular pianist, which perhaps informs some of the relaxed freedom of her lovely interpretations. Despite the relative brevity of her career, she was clearly a player of great authority and virtuosity.

For me, Victor Staub’s recordings, all from the late 1920s, are the most revelatory of the lot. His exquisitely pellucid touch, as consistent in fleet passagework as in sustained cantabile playing, is a joy to the ear. Staub’s ample rubato always seems integral to the music’s expressive demands without exceeding the boundaries of good taste, even by today’s more strait-laced standards. Extraordinary speed in Daquin’s ‘Le coucou’ and Mendelssohn’s ‘Spinning Song’ retains remarkable clarity and crispness. Four Schumann pieces – three of the Fantasiestücke and Liszt’s transcription of ‘Frühlingsnacht’ – are refreshingly free of sentimentality, while an unorthodox yet winning take on Sinding’s Rustle of Spring is amusing. A sophisticated sense of drollery envelopes Debussy’s ‘Golliwogg’s Cake Walk’ and ‘Minstrels’. If Staub’s Rigaudon from Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin is slower and more deliberate than we’ve come to expect, it is perhaps more consistent with the hopping steps of the Baroque dance.

Intelligence is the watchword for Lazare-Lévy’s probing interpretations of a wide repertory. He plays works by Chabrier, Dukas and Roussel with a conviction that suggests they might be neglected masterworks of the pianistic canon. Schubert’s A flat Impromptu borders on the routine but pieces by Couperin and Daquin come off as stylish and heartfelt. Two of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke and a pair of Chopin Mazurkas are perhaps Lazare-Lévy at his best. On the other hand, a recording of Mozart’s K475 Fantasia from 1931 seems mired in a 19th-century approach, while three sonatas (K330, 331 and 310) from 1952 and 1955 leave one wondering if they would be more expressively rendered on a typewriter.

The booklets contain informative notes for Gaillard and Guilbert by Caroline Rae and for Lazare-Lévy and Staub by Frédéric Gaussin, as well as APR’s customarily thorough discographic documentation. The transfers are excellent.