Claude Achille Debussy

Philippe Graffin provided one of Avie’s landmark releases, the world-premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto (AV 0044). He returns with a more intimate but equally innovative disc devoted to works from his homeland. The figureheads of French impression – Debussy and Ravel – are paired with Impressions by the revelatory Romanian George Enescu, for whom Paris was like a second home.

Graffin, a multiple Gramophone Editor’s Choice artist, offers some popular melodies in unfamiliar guises. A trio of Debussy miniatures – Minstrels, Il Pleure dans mon Coeur, and La fille aux cheveux de lin – are heard in arrangements by Hungarian violinist Arthur Hartmann, a close friend of the composer. Ravel’s Tzigane is heard here with the original instrument it was written for, the prepared-piano sounding lutheal, using the last known instrument (from 1922) which is housed in the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels.

A unique master musician, de Valmalète's interpretations are not bound to any time. Her individuality shone throughout a life which lasted one hundred years. Her performance of Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin is the first recording ever made of the work. A memoir by Idil Biret is included in the text. These recordings reveal de Valmalète as one of the greatest pianists of the Twentieth Century.