Dear All,
Please find attached two recordings from my past friend Francis Moutier, who passed away two weeks ago. He played these pieces at one of our 'Carrefour du piano' meetings, in '2005, that I have recorded on a cassette. Unfortunately, I did not take note of the exact references of the pieces. The first series is presumably composed by Bartok, and the second by Villa-Lobos. Does anyone knows the names and opus numbers of these pieces ? Thanks in advance. I am preparing a CD for his family and friends.
BTW, Francis was a rather good amateur pianist, specialist of Bartok. We miss him a lot...

Your friend certainly had a way with Bartok, capturing his brittle nervous energy admirably.
The technique is a little shaky at times but I assume he was not so young anymore, so that
can be forgiven.

The Bartok pieces are from books 5 and 6 of Mikrokosmos.
Book 5: Burlesque Rustique, Quartes, and Cornemuse
Book 6: The Six Dances in Bulgarian rhythm, in the strange order 4,5,2,3,1,6

Though I know a goodly chunk of Villa-Lobos' piano music, these pieces don't ring a bell to me.
In fact I rather doubt these are by Villa-Lobos, they sound not at all like him. The first
could have been Ginastera, but I'm lost about the rest. Sounds more like French
to me, I seem to hear some references to French songs like the Marsellaise. If you find out
what this is,'d love to know. Interesting and very individual playing again.

Great idea to make a CD ! Sorry I could not help with the (supposed) Villa-Lobos items.

Thank you, Chris, for your so rapid and competent answer ! I knew you couldn't ignore the Bartok's pieces, being yourself another fan/specialist. Well, Francis was only 63, and we expected to have him many more years, but he got a sudden brain attack, the type of thing any of us may get whenever... He had a beautiful piano sound. As you noted, his technique was sometimes loose, partly because of some osteoarthritis that bothered him sometimes...

You're right, there are not only the Marseillaise, but other traditional French popular songs quoted in the second set of pieces. However, I've just read on the Internet that Villa-Lobos had many relations with France. He apparently made a long stay in 1923-1924 in Paris, and came back several times afterward. So he may have included these citations as a kind of hommage to French culture ? Anyway, he wrote about 1000 opus numbers, so this is not easy to screen all this material...

It could be, and I don't claim to have played, or even heard, all of VL's immense piano output. They just don't seem to sound like him at all. Even while residing in Paris, he very much had his own unique sound. In my experience his music is almost always instantly recognizable, and could not be by anybody else. I hope you can find out what this is.

You guys are so silly! It is Villa-Lobos and the pieces were written while he was in Paris. They are from the suite titled, "Francette Et Pia"


1. Pia est venu en France
2. Pia a vu Francette
3. Pia a parlé à Francette
4. Pia et Francette jouent ensemble
5. Francette est fâchée
6. Pia est parti pour la guerre
7. Francette est triste
8. Pia revient de la guerre
9. Francette est contente
10. Francette et Pia jouent pour toujours

In the recordings in the attachment, I know I heard nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6. Don't have time to figure out the rest but I think there are only one or two more from the set.

Btw - I am hoping to get into some Villa-Lobos later this summer. He's written so much music and a lot of short pieces, which is what I like.

Right, Francette et Pia I new the name (they're published by Eschig) but had never heard these. Still I stick by my assessment that these don't sound at all characteristic. Certainly HVL's usual Brazilian undertow seems absent here, even though it says the suite is on popular French *and* Brazilian tunes (I did not detect any of the latter). They could well have been by any French composer of the time. I'm just being silly of course.

Thank you so much, Monica ! Well, this is a good demonstration that we need both of you as administrators
Regards,

Francois, thank you posting them, since I enjoyed these interesting pieces a lot! Your friend actually captured the right mood of them! What a pity that he passed away so early...

Yes, I think so, too

Thanks, Hye-Jin. Yes, he would have deserved to join our community... Maybe in the future, if Heaven gets eventually an Internet connection ?

funny!