Romance sans paroles, Op.
Kathryn Stott, piano. Hyperion CD 67064. The composer was, after all, wounded by his broken engagement to Marianne Viardot, daughter of famed mezzo Pauline Viardot, and ended up in a thoroughly bourgeois marriage of many years. Perhaps that shadow feeds his work, which though beautifully appointed usually hides something basic, even fierce. No. 1 in e-flat veers from reverie to resolve and has an especially beautiful songlike section with typically oblique harmonies.