4 hands on the keys: The continuing piano adventures of the fearless Labque sisters

It was 1969, at the Paris Conservatoire, when everything changed for a pair of strong-willed, piano-playing sisters from France named Katia and Marielle Labèque.They were practicing a thorny two-piano work, Visions de l'Amen, by Olivier Messiaen, one of the school's teachers and by then a legendary composer.He heard the sisters play and asked if one of them would like to record the piece with his wife.

They refused, saying they had already decided to stick together as a piano duo.Messiaen relented, then supervised what would be the sisters' very first recording.A movement of that recording closes out a new three-disc set by the Labèques.

The album is titled 55.It contains 55 tracks — a toast to the sisters' 55 years (and then some) of recording.

We have the expected gems from the Labèque's substantial back catalog, repertoire standards and favorites ranging from Dvořák's Slavonic Dances and Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite to arrangements of music by Gershwin, Bernstein and Debussy.But the set is no mere retrospective compilation.The surprise is that nearly half of the tracks are brand new recordings for this project.

And with the new tracks, the Labèques are out to make a point.Many of them are written by women composers — too often neglected, admittedly even by the sisters themselves.

There is sturdy music by the 20th century Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, who is slowly receiving much deserved recognition, and a track by the enigmatic Ethiopian nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who died in 2023.Also Lili Boulanger, the talented, short-lived sister of famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger.

And the Labèques include a powerful arrangement of "Troubled Water" by African American composer Margaret Bonds, born in 1913.About half of the recordings on the set feature the sisters each at their own piano in full-throated, 2-piano duets — from Manuel de Falla's flamenco-infused Spanish Dance No.1 to a rowdy "Carolina Shout" by stride jazz king James P.

Johnso...