Marcelle Meyer: Complete Studio Recordings 1925 - 1957

Having the need for inspiration? A quick listen to have the way through the forest to find your piano way? This is it. A complete collection of way more pieces than any one person will be able to master in a lifetime, yet she already has! Sublime excellence to the ear!

Marcelle Meyer was one of the great pianists of the early-to-mid 20th century. She studied with Cortot and Marguerite Long. Later with Ravel, Debussy and Ricardo Vines. A fantastic talent. She palled around with Satie, Poulenc, and Stravinsky. Rhythm and lilt inhabit every fiber of her being. We are very lucky that such a talent was also around at the beginning of the recorded age. These 17 CDs superbly showcase the French style which these days alas has been whittled down into the generic International Style along with every other previously instantly identifiable musical culture.

I already owned a 2-disc set of Marcelle Meyer playing Rameu pieces before purchasing this set, and bought it based on my love of her playing there. I found when this set arrived that she played music ranging from Bach, Couperin, Scarlatti and Mozart to Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Stravinsky equally as well. I've encountered very few Classical pianists with such a wide repertoire, played with absolute clarity and conviction throughout its range. I've never heard playing of Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas that I prefer to hers, and I have Horowitz, Tharaud, Subdin, Perahia, and Babayan playing his music. Since there are two-and-a-half discs worth of Scarlatti sonatas in the set, that justified the purchase alone for me, but there is so much more. One disc, with Rossini and Schubert pieces skipped, but in a 17-disc set that's almost to be expected. If you enjoy the keyboard music of the composers I mentioned, you owe it to yourself to check this set out.

I was familiar with Rameau and Couperin keyboard works thru Grigory Sokolov and Vikingur Olafsson and Scarlatti thru Horowitz and Lucas Debargue, and I am really impressed by Marcelle Meyer's recordings. Whereas Olafsson and Sokolov play Rameau within a similar amazing atmosphere of crispness, speed and precision (with spare use of the sustain pedal- the same goes for Debargue superb Scarlatti), Meyer imparts the music with a sweetness , sensuality and overall "Frenchness" that is very beautiful. Actually her Rameau is more Debussy than Olafsson's in his Debussy -Rameau fantastic recording.Obviously Meyer's association with Les Six and Jean Cocteau as well as her direct interactions with Debussy, Ravel, Satie and Ricardo Viñés gave her an insider's view and ear into their music, an insight that shaped her magisterial pianistic talents. This box with additional recordings of the keyboard music of Ravel, Debussy and JS Bach is a jewel of 17 cds of great piano playing.

Meyer understood what no one else did: that Schubert's aesthetic entered French music through Rossini's late piano music. One disc in this set, reflects her understanding. It is a pairing which is never made. From there, it moves on to--naturally--Chabrier (who is the French Schubert)--as well as Bizet (and this explains Nietzsche's advocacy of Bizet): that is, through song, as you might expect from Schubert.And Debussy? He affected to despise Schubert, but then, through his tobacco haze, he was a man of many affectations and evasions. What more strongly characterizes Debussy than his thematic delays? This he got from Schumann, who took it from Schubert, who took it from Beethoven (who didn't have a lot to say, so better string it out).But Meyer plays too loudly. She is too public a performer. Performers should make audiences hear with their minds, not their ears. Ears are for elephants.

Wow what a find! After decades of collecting, I read the customer reviews and purchased this box set. Meyer's Scarlatti (two cds of the set) ALONE is worth the price of the set. If you love Scarlatti, and dislike over-romanticized performances (e.g. Horowitz) you'll love Meyer's spirited but still baroque renditions. I keep listening to the same two CDs over-and-over.For Scarlatti, it's still Kirkpatrick on harpsichord, but Meyer takes top honors on piano. Also the recorded sound is quite good.

i had never heard of Marcelle Meyer before, yet these recordings have convinced me that she is one of the great pianists of the early 20th century. Particularly, her interpretations of Rameau, Bach, and Scarlatti harpsichord pieces. And, I am only halfway through the set.

This is an outstanding collection of performances by Meyer. Chabrier, Rameau, Ravel, Debussy, Mozart, Scarlatti are among the best of the performances. It is of interest to compare the piano performances of Rameau to the harpsichord performances by Wanda Landowska of Rameau, who rediscovered this literature. Well worth having.

The other, highly appreciative, reviews here on Amazon make an excellent case for Marcelle Meyer’s complete studio recordings in this box set issued by ‘The Intense Media’, and at the current price of £15 or so, it is well worth acquiring. However, some comments state that the recorded sound on many of the discs is good, despite the age of the originals. I disagree. The sound is acceptable at best. But your ears have to work at it. In fact, compared to the sound on the 13 cd set of recordings (covering the same period - 1929 to 1956) by another great French pianist, Yves Nat, issued by the same company, Meyer’s discs are somewhat muffled throughout. Even on the most recent recordings from the 1950s, the “top” has been cut. So, while a bargain is a bargain, be prepared to make the necessary adjustment to your hearing. An exception to this drawback is the disc devoted to the music of Ravel, which has plenty of top.

A wonderful release, but the publisher is clearly using faulty CDs or there is a problem with their reproduction process. On a quick first listen, at least four of the CDs have read errors in the outer tracks, i.e. towards the end of the CD. In my case this involved CD2 track 17, CD5 track 18, CD11 track 22, and CD12 tracks 29 & 30, all of which are affected by skipping and popping caused by unreadable data. I will ask Amazon for a replacement product, and am hoping it might be possible to make a complete set between the two. A shame, as Marcelle Meyer really should be widely heard.UPDATE: The replacement item has the same faults at the same places on the same CDs, so clearly a manufacturing problem.

I came upon Marcelle Meyer's playing by a happy accident on You tube. Her rendition of D Scarlatti sonatas is amongst the best I have heard-ever really!. and I like listening to Scarlatti Sonatas a lot. Her interpretation is altogether much cooler than one hears with mode modern interpretations -not so emphatic just the music played with enormous facility and grace. So I bought the box set from Amazon which is very moderately priced Her Ravel is a revelation- her Rameau is a rare treat; Chabrier -champion and Debussy -delightful Bach also pretty good. The sound quality of a few of these remastered disks is not all it might be, but generally the standard is very high. A really worthwhile purchase.

Complete waste of money!No booklet.Track listings on the CD sleeve are a load of rubbish, they bear very little resemblance to the music on the disc.What is the point of listening to music if you have no idea what it is?However, they were very cheap.You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Excellent collection.....but......there seems to be a technical problem with disc 5 from track 18 onwards. Has anybody else had this problem? I have ordered the box twice and the problem remains.