Search - Alphonse Hasselmans, Gabriel Faure, Marcel Tournier :: Impromptu

Harpist Emily Mitchell has come up with an interesting program of French Romantic and Impressionist works for solo harp. Chances are, if you're not a harp enthusiast, you haven't heard these pieces and you're not familiar with composers like Alphonse Hasselmans and Marcel Tournier, both central figures in the instrument's development. Harp buffs will love this, though, and the rest of us will enjoy it in smaller bites of four or five tracks at a time or find it ideal background music. Serious listening is rewarded by the subtle colors and medieval atmosphere evoked by Fauré in his Une Châtelaine en sa Tour, the gentle lilting melodies of Tournier's Six Noëls, Hasselmans' dreamy Réverie, and Mitchell's lovely adaptation of a Fauré Nocturne. First-rate playing and engineering. --Dan Davis