Debussy: Hommage à Haydn

“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

“Where Bavouzet breaks out into blazing Mediterranean sunlight, Rogé is happy to withdraw into shadow-land. Time and again his playing suggests emotion recollected in tranquillity rather than turmoil;… "Poissons d'or" is a marvellous distillation of indolence and flashing disruption.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2008

“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.

“Every bar of these performances confirms Ogawa as a most elegant, scrupulously sensitive interpreter of 'music like a dream from which one draws away the veil' (Debussy). She achieves a magical transparency throughout Book 1 of the Préludes with her refined pedalling and cool command of texture and colour. In 'Voiles' she makes you readily recall Cortot's heady description of 'the flight of the white wing on the crooning sea toward the horizon bright with the setting sun' while maintaining her own individuality. Her hushed start before the start of the whirling tarantella in 'Les collines d'Anacapri' is one of many haunting touches; and her playing of 'Des pas sur la neige', the Arctic centre of Book 1 of the Préludes, suggests some ultimate desolation. In Children's Corner she never turns 'Doctor Gradus', marked modérémentanimé, into a glittering presto and finds time to convey its mix of guile and sophistication. You could hardly find a more skilful or sympathetic artist from a younger generation. BIS's demonstration sound quality crowns this superb issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“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