The Last Works (1916-1922)

Louis Vierne is best-known as a famous organist and composer of organ music. Less well-known, as it was not part of his public life but was to a large extent reserved for private circles, was the fact that he was also an outstanding pianist. His piano works were praised by his contemporaries for their compositional refinement, fine sonority, as well as frequent virtuosic passages, and are on the same artistic level as his organ works. The third volume of the chronologically arranged edition of Vierne’s works includes “Silhouettes d’enfants” op. 43 in the tradition of 19th-century children’s pieces and the major work of his later creative period, the four-movement cycle “Solitude” op. 44. It also includes two pieces which only survive in manuscript form, published here for the first time.