Despite his name's faintly French appearance, Arthur Lourié was a Russian-born composer (born Naoum Izraïlevitch Louria) who died in the USA in 1966. A student of Glazunov at the Conservatory of St Petersburg until 1913, he quit the academic scene, reproaching it for its academicism, and followed his own path as an autodidact. His first works, some of which are presented here, still bear the double mark of late romanticism and Scriabin. Shortyle afterwards he would dip a toe into atonalism and and serialism, before jumping back out pretty quickly. After the Russian Revolution, his anti-academic positions saw him quickly appointed a professor of music, but Lourié quickly realised that things could only get worse, and he sought and won political asylum during a trip to Berlin in 1921. Shortly thereafter he set up in Paris, where he visited Stravinsky and took on board the latter's influence, and his neoclassicism. In 1941 he left Paris and set up in New York, in Kossevitzky's circle. Perhaps thought of as a stateless man, Lourié's music has (still) not found the recognition that it deserves. It's a safe bet that this album by Christian Erny, with works from all of the composer's periods – from the Five Preludes Op. 1 of 1910 to the Little Suite in F of 1957 – will draw music-lovers' attention to Lourié. © SM/Qobuz