Weber's piano music, once played by most pianists, has since suffered neglect and even the famous Invitation to the Dance is now more often heard in its orchestral form. Since he was a renowned pianist as well as a major composer, the neglect seems odd, particularly when other pianist composers such as Chopin and Liszt are at the centre of the concert repertory; but part of the trouble may lie in the difficulty of the music, reflecting his own huge hands and his tendency to write what the booklet-essay calls 'chords unplayable by others'. Jean-François Heisser, the French classical pianist, makes out a real case for this music, and his playing of the two sonatas is idiomatic and resourceful, even if one can't banish the feeling that Weber all too readily used the melodic and harmonic formulae of 18thcentury galanterie and simply dressed them up in 19th-century salon virtuosity.

Les Siècles is one of France's finest early music ensembles, and its work in repertoire from the Baroque era to the Romantic period is fascinating for its precision, attention to historical details, and most of all, commitment to original instrumentation.

Without a doubt, it is urgent to get back to essentials, to retrace the path from the canyons to the stars, to celebrate “the beauties of the earth (its rocks, its birdsongs), the beauties of the material sky, the beauties of the spiritual sky,” as Messiaen writes at the head of his score.