Debussy: Élégie, L138

“The most engaging is the Petite Suite, delivered with a buoyant, rippling touch to bring out its warmth and charm.” The Independent, 2nd September 2011 ***

“Here there is spaciousness, an evocation of colour and character, a seemingly effortless precision in the duo works that put this in the front rank of Debussy.” Classical Music, 24th September 2011 ****

“There is no doubting either Rogé's touch, with some spine-tingling textures in the final 'Scherzando' of En blanc et noir, and evocative eeriness in 'Pour l'Egyptienne' from the Epigraphes antiques.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **

“The masterpiece here is En blanc et noir...The Roges revel in its many nuances and the glistening sonorities of the textures” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011

“This third volume confirms Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's winning affinity for Debussy's music. Such familiar pieces as the Suite bergamasque, Deux Arabesques or Children's Corner come across with their colours luminous, their ideas voiced fluently and the moods atmospherically fixed.” The Telegraph, 31st May 2008

“Fiercely energised yet superfine, his performances are not for those with comfortable drawing-room notions of Debussy.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2008

“…this delightful disc places Debussy's two most modest cycles (Children's Corner and Suite bergamasque) within a broadly chronological sequence of pieces spanning the composer's career.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 *****

“Volume 3 of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's superb Debussy cycle links mostly early miniatures with the Suite bergamasque and Children's Corner.
Once more he turns conventional notions of 'impressionism' topsy-turvy, cleansing Debussy of years of dust and accretion and recreating him in every bar in a sparkling and pristine light.
Fiercely energised yet superfine, his performances are not for those with comfortable drawing- room notions of Debussy, and rarely in my experience has a pianist so faultlessly or precisely achieved his aims.
All sentimentality is erased from the Nocturne's enchanting evanescence and just when he momentarily has you wishing that his formidable directness would melt into something more heart-easing, he makes you gasp at his flawless balance of sense and sensibility. He makes something audaciously epic out of Hommage à Haydn and the startling hesitancy in the opening of 'The Snow is Dancing' is convincing rather than idiosyncratic.
His recital ends on a desolating note with the Berceuse héroïque's phantom battle-cries and bugle-calls memorably evoked. The superbly recorded disc includes his own remarkable essay.
This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.
A greater study in contrast in 'composer and interpreter' would be hard to imagine then between Bavouzet and Pascal Rogéacute;. Where Bavouzet breaks out into blazing Mediterranean sunlight, Rogéacute; (radically enriching his earlier Decca Debussy discs) is happy to withdraw into shadow-land. Time and again his playing suggests emotion recollected in tranquillity rather than turmoil; and in, say, 'Hommage à Rameau' or the Sarabande from Pour le piano he discovers the mysterious, still centre of Debussy's art.
'Poissons d'or' is a marvellous distillation of indolence and flashing disruption, and 'Mouvement' is a perky and vivacious rejoinder to all former introspection. And so too is the Toccata, played with unerring ease and grace, and with many ear-catching details.
To summarise, the ever-elusive truth lies somewhere between Rogéacute; the dreamer, Bavouzet the sinewy but always musical athlete, Thibaudet, the teasing wit and sophisticate and, of course, the legendary Gieseking. You pays your money and you takes your choice…” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Debussy playing does not come any better than this” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Jean-Yves Thibaudet's Debussy cycle is a cornucopia of delights. The 12 Etudes could hardly be presented more personally or vivaciously. Nos 6 and 7 are marvels of bright-eyed irony and humour, while Nos 8 and 9 contrast a haunting alternation of lassitude and hyperactivity with razor-sharp cascades of repeated notes. His timing in the central lento, molto rubato of No 12 is memorably acute; throughout, you're aware of a pianist with a penchant for spare pedalling and a refined brilliance, far remote from, say, Gieseking's celebrated, opalescent magic. He takes a brisk hand to the Children's Corner suite (allegro rather than allegretto in 'Serenade for the Doll', hardly modérément animé in 'The Snow is Dancing') but even here his spruce technique and vitality are never less than enlivening. In the Suitebergamasque he dances the 'Menuet' with an unusual sense of its underlying grace and gravity, and his 'Clair de lune' is exceptionally silvery and transparent. Both books of Images are given with a rare sense of epiphany or illumination, of flashing fins and sunlight in 'Poissons d'or' and of a timeless sense of archaism in 'Hommage à Rameau'.
Decca's presentation and sound are, respectively, lavish and natural. If you want to hear Debussy new-minted, with air-spun and scintillating textures, Thibaudet is your man.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Howat plays with intelligence and elegance, using the pedal skillfully to produce a variety of nicely shaded tone colors in unmannered performances, with a good sense of form.” American Record Guide, November 2000

“This is a truly distinguished set of Debussy recordings, worthy, in my view, to take their place amongst the very finest on disc. Not only do they throw much new light on very celebrated music, they also contain much which is hard to find recorded anywhere else. Above all, there is sensitivity and vibrant imagination, allied to a transcendental technique always at the service of the music.” MusicWeb International

“Captivating playing” of “exceeding beauty and refinement” have earned the previous volumes of Noriko Ogawa's Debussy cycle the highest recommendations, including no less than two Editor's Choice in Gramophone.

“Volume 3 of Noriko Ogawa's highly praised Debussy cycle includes a superlative performance of La boîte à joujoux that's worth the price of the disc alone. Here, the wildest selection of characters, folk tunes and operas – whether gentle or uncouth, charmers or roustabouts – twirl and tapdance their way through an intricate variety of steps clearly inspired by Stravinsky's Petrushka.
Ogawa responds to every fleeting whimsicality with such clarity and refinement that you are lost in wonder and almost forget that the piano version finally outstays its welcome.
On more authentic pianistic ground, Ogawa wears her sense of Debussian mystery lightly, taking a sometimes disappointingly open-ended view of some of the composer's most poignant and interior thoughts. Scrupulously modern in her approach, she scorns all sentimental evasion but, while she's never less than musicianly, one would have liked a greater awareness of elegy in the Berceuse héroïque, and, in the Préludes, more of the whirring evanescence and less of the superficially abstract, étude-like character in 'Les tierces alternées'.
'Brouillards' and 'Canope' are other coolly perceived evocations and Ogawa is surely happier when not confined by so many pianissimo demands. 'Feux d'artifice' and 'La puerto del vino' are outstanding examples of her virtuosity at its most superfine and characterful.
These, then, are masterly performances even when they hardly sound like music composed 'for an instrument without hammers'. The sound, like the playing, is close, bright and intense.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…it is Ogawa's performance of the second book of Preludes that grabs the headlines, for she has both the range of colour and the emotional flexibility to bring the Preludes alive. It takes a remarkably multi-faceted pianist to capture the diversity of moods so successfully... Ogawa seriously challenges Krystian Zimerman's hegemony of the Preludes amongst modern accounts.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2006 *****

“...we can marvel again at how completely she and Debussy transcend the percussive limitations of the piano without ever romanticising or sentimentalising these miniature masterpieces.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 14th February 2006

“…a superlative performance of La boîte à joujoux ('Ballet pour enfants')… Ogawa responds to every fleeting whimsicality with such clarity and refinement that you are lost in wonder and almost forget that the piano version finally outstays its welcome. Feux d'artifice and La Puerto del Vino are outstanding examples of her virtuosity at its most superfine and characterful.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2006