LUCIEN DUROSOIR (1878-1955): Piano Trio in B Minor (Trio Hoboken), Trilogie for Cello and Piano (Raphaël Merlin [cello], Johan Farjot [piano]), Idylle for Wind Quartet (Quintette Aquilon), Berceuse for Cello and Piano (Éric Picard [cello], Jérôme Granjon [piano]), Le Balcon for Bass, Women's Choir and String Quintet (Jean-Christophe Jacques [bass], Ensemble Sequenza 9.3; Catherine Simonpiétri [conductor], Quatuor Diotima, Yann Dubost [double bass]), Sonnet à un enfant for Soprano and Piano (Kareen Durand [soprano]), Jeff Cohen [piano]).

Description: The fourth disc in Alpha's Durosoir bonanza brings a striking piano trio from 1926-27: each instrument goes its own way in the outer movements with material opposing each of the other two instruments; pared down, varied, tossed around from instrument to instrument, it demands virtuosity and concentration in equal parts in ways one must read the long notes to try to understand. To the layman, though, the work sounds vaguely obsessive, argumentative, with a melancholy slow movement. The other large work is the 1924 Le balcon, a 17-minute setting for bass, ten women's voices and string quintet of a Baudelaire ode to a dark enchantress who may have been the poet's mistress, which moves with quicksilver speed between fervor, languor and violence. French-English texts.