One of the so-called “Creole Romantic” musical dynasties of New Orleans, and equally adept as composer and pianist, Lucièn Lambert Sr. even engaged in “cutting contests” with fellow Orleanian Louis Moreau Gottschalk before they went to France for higher musical studies. These pioneering African-American composers helped to develop the cross-cultural musical language that served as a link between European concert music, ragtime and jazz.

Piano dances by Lucièn Sr. are characterized by catchy rhythms, including the bolero. His highly ornamental piano Variations et final (1859) rings changes on the famous tune Au clair de la lune. The music by Lucièn Jr. reflects later, more sophisticated tastes, including the passionate and melodically distinguished overture to the opera Brocéliande (1891) and the elaborate solo piano Prélude, fugue et postlude (1924), parts of which could pass for Busoni or early Hindemith. The piano four-hand Esquisses créoles (1898) is based on themes by family friend Gottschalk.