Black and white butterflies

Jules Massenet was a very good pianist and he composed for his instrument from an early age (Dix Pièces de genre, 1866) before turning body and soul to orchestral and vocal forms. However, he returned to piano composition at the end of the century: after the death of Ambroise Thomas and his subsequent resignation from the Paris Conservatoire, he turned once again to the Parisian salons with his Deux impromptus (1896) and Deux Pièces pour piano (1907). These evocative pieces were presented on those occasions with the early piano works of his students, from Portraits de peintres by Reynaldo Hahn (1894) to Rêverie by Paul Hillemacher (1908), and including Xavier Leroux’s Romance and Gabriel Pierné’s Étude symphonique (1903).