Claude Debussy: Images oubliées (excerpts)
- Quelques aspects de nous n'irons plus au bois
- Lent (mélancolique et doux)
- Souvenir de Louvre
George Crumb: Makrokosmos I: Part III: No. 11. Dream Images (Gemini)
Maurice Ravel: Miroirs (excerpts)
- No. 1. Noctuelles
- No. 3. Une barque sur l'océan
- No. 4. Alborada del gracioso
- No. 2. Oiseaux tristes
- No. 5. La vallée des cloches
Alexander Scriabin: 5 Preludes, Op. 16
- No. 3 in G-Flat Major
- No. 4 in E-Flat Minor
- No. 5 in F-Sharp Minor
- No. 1 in B Major
- No. 2 in G-Sharp Minor
Vera Schmidt: Cave Obscure

As in a relay race, it's reassuring to see young pianists picking up the baton from the previous generation of musicians. It ensures that classical music performance and recording still has a future. Following many radio broadcasts of pre-recorded concerts, this appears to be the first commercial recording by pianist Josefa Schmidt (b. 1998), a former prize winner of many international piano competitions. The concept or purpose behind this assemblage of seemingly disparate piano works by this incongruous group of composers, is to create a dreamscape made-up of imagined, nebulous imagery. The common denominator that links them all is their foray into unknown or unusual daydream imagery, detached states of mind, or irrational nightmare inducing fears, as the Vera Schmidt (b. 1990) piece titled Cave Obscure (Dark Cellar) suggests. And oddly enough, it's the piece by George Crumb that best reflects this concept in the way that it drifts in and out of memories containing strands of Chopin's music.

Despite a lack of more subtle dynamic nuancing here and there, and a general abscence of pedal sustain (or is it the recording venue's dry acoustics), Josefa Schmidt's expressive playing always captures the music's generally limpid character and quicksilver mood shifts. The unusual technical demands of the Ravel pieces are met with aplomb, as well as the finesse of Scriabin's distant harmonic explorations. Sit back, listen, and allow your mind to drift like Une barque sur l'océan.