French Concertos

A Discography Of CDs And LPs
Prepared by Michael Herman
Maintained by Stephen Ellis

National Discographies Home Page

Last Updated: October 2024

Introduction

The composers included in this discography are those who wrote concertos and other works for soloist(s) and orchestra that have been issued on CDs and LPs and who were born in or came to live in France. As France has always been a magnet for artists of all types, it should be no surprise that many of composers herein listed were born in other countries. Although the concerto and other concertante works have never been as central to French composers as they have been to their German and Russian colleagues, as this work clearly shows, their production has not been insignificant. Only a few concertos documented below, by Lalo, Ravel, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns, and several other concertante works by Chausson, Debussy, Faure, can be considered as part of or on the fringes of the standard repertoire. While a number of concertos were written in the early-nineteenth century, they made little impact on a musical culture that was clearly dominated by opera and ballet. Even when the symphony came into vogue, later in that century, with the exception of Saint-Saëns and Lalo, there were still few concertos being produced by France’s most prominent composers. There was some improvement in this situation in the twentieth century and that accounts for the fact that the majority of works listed below date from that time. Concertos are still being written now, but, like most other traditional forms, in greatly diminished numbers.

Recorded is here defined as being available in a physical format that can be (or could have been) purchased or obtained from either a commercial or non-commercial source. Tape recordings, DVD’s, music available exclusively as downloads from the internet and formats other than CDs or LPs are not included.

The entry for each composer consists of two sections. First there is a compact biographical paragraph that notes some essential information such as place of birth, higher musical education (including schools and prominent teachers), subsequent musical careers in addition to composing, and details of other concertos that have not been recorded. Compositional styles are not discussed in these paragraphs, and readers are referred to the bibliography where various reference books that cover this subject are listed. The second part of each composer entry consists of lists of his or her concertos that have been recorded and the various recordings of each work. A concerto is very broadly defined defined for the purposes of this discography to include any work that has the word “concerto,” “concertino” or “concertante” in its title whether or not a soloist is involved. Also included is any work in which an instrumental soloist is continually involved, whatever its title may be. For every concerto that has them, the opus number, key signature and title are noted and the year of composition (when known) is stated for all. The entries of the concertos that have had multiple recordings are listed alphabetically by soloists’ names. Each listing of a recording consists of the following components (again, if known): (1) performers – soloist(s), conductor, orchestra, (2) other works on the recording, (3) label and catalogue number and year of issue and (4), if the recording is a reissue, the original LP or CD release, and its year of issue. Please note that the performers listed are for the entry work and not necessarily for the work or works that complete the disc. Also, in most instances, when an entry work is included in a large collection (especially if most of the other works are not related to the discography’s subject), the list of couplings is not given but is replaced by the title of the collection.

All recordings listed are CDs unless specifically designated as LPs.

Acknowledgements

As noted above, Stephen Ellis has edited this work. However, he was much more than an editor who corrected my errors both inadvertent and egregious, but he also enlightened me with his vast knowledge of composers of the modern era and recordings of their works. His contribution was indispensible and greatly appreciated. Thanks also once again to Len Mullinger for hosting my work on his superb MusicWeb International website and also to David Barker for straightening out the technical problems that I submitted along with the document.

Composer List