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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Debussy - Complete Works for Solo Piano Volume 3
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet here offers the third volume in his series devoted to the complete works for piano by Debussy. The music now moves to a more playful strand in Debussy’s compositional career, with generally shorter pieces of the salon genre, including the two famous collections Children’s Corner and Suite bergamasque. In addition to these well-known works are several that are more rarely heard. Two such are La plus que lente, which seems to look ahead to the Études of 1915, and Élégie. Roger Nichols describes the former as ‘one of his most delightful pieces… the harmonic turns are particularly sophisticated and enchanting’. The Élégie was written in 1915 following the composer’s move to the coast. The outbreak of the First World War had initially depressed Debussy into a state of creative sterility but the move was to prove most productive. The Élégie was written for a charity and, dedicated to Queen Alexandra, honours the role of women in wartime. It is now rarely performed but Roger Nichols writes, ‘it is one of the composer’s most extraordinary works… and we are left wondering what on earth Debussy would have written in the 1920s and beyond’. Bavouzet’s previous two volumes have been very well received both critically and commercially. In a recent review of volume two the LA Times wrote, ‘In what may turn out to be the greatest complete recorded survey of the composer’s piano music yet, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet… plays with such bracing clarity that hearing the early Romantic pieces, one feels like jumping into an icy pond after an hour in the sauna’. Of the same volume International Record Review has noted, ‘I had the highest praise for Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s first volume of Debussy, and the present disc is fully the equal of that one in terms of colour, refinement of touch, spontaneity and technical finish… Bavouzet has written that his Debussy playing has been influenced by that of Gieseking, Michelangeli and Richter. You may hear something of each of these pianists in his playing but more than that you will hear his own distinctive and special voice’. This series is a deeply personal project for Bavouzet who has been involved in all aspects of the recording process. “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 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Debussy - Complete Piano Works Volume 2
“Everything is beautifully phrased, and Pascal Rogé has a fabulous touch, difficult passagework often pouring out of him like a stream of glittering gemstones.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2007 *** “A model of piano recording” Daily Telegraph | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol.2
“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 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Also available as part of the Debussy - The Piano Works box set, ALC4002. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Debussy: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 5
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| |  | Hommage à Debussy: Works for Piano Vol. 1
Juliana Steinbach (piano) Juliana Steinbach opens the 4CD cycle of the Blüthner-Debussy collection, all performed by young pianists at the start of their promising careers. This young Brazilian pianist has set the bar high and performs works such as the Suite Bergamasque and Images with warmth and pianistic perfection. | |
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| |  | Debussy: Piano Music Volume 5
Pianist Noriko Ogawa has won critical acclaim for earlier volumes of this Debussy piano music cycle, with her interpretations of the composer’s sets of Images and of Études singled out as belonging to the finest in the discography. On this the fifth and final disc, Noriko Ogawa again offers us scintillating performances of works both well-known and less often heard. The two Arabesques were among Debussy’s most popular works already during his lifetime, with hundreds of thousand of copies sold before his death. Another ‘hit’ was Rêverie, which Debussy himself wanted to suppress, but which at one stage even ended up as No. 1 on the US Billboard chart in a swing arrangement. Less familiar are some of the youthful works, for instance Danse bohémienne, Debussy’s first piano piece composed at the age of 18. But the two main works on the disc are indisputably the suites Pour le Piano and Suite Bergamasque, which Debussy completed in his maturity. “Ogawa is an exceptionally fine advocate for this music; as with volume one, the piano sound is gorgeous. Her playing is never less than sensitive and beautiful...Ogawa's sense of colour combines with clarity of line and a genial charm that brings alive not only the better known works...but also less characteristic pieces such as the Danse bohemienne...another very enjoyable contribution to a strong cycle.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2011 **** “Ogawa is thoroughly capable of rising to the occasion: notice the verve and point she brings to the opening Preludes of the Suite Bergamasuqe and Pour le piano suites. BIS's mellow resonance falls as easily on the ear as Ogawa's agreeable yet inconsistently inspired pianism” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011 “The present volume evinces all of the pianistic virtues that Ogawa has previously shown: crisp fingerwork; clear articulation even in pedalled textures; fluidity and flexibility within a steady rhythm and pulse; lovely touch and tone; ample power wherever needed.” International Record Review, September 2011 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Debussy: Complete Solo Piano Music
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| |  | Debussy - The Complete Piano Music Volume 4This set completes Bennett Lerner's distinguished survey of Debussy's Complete Piano Music, and adds additional works written in Debussy's memory by admirers of the great French composer-Bela Bartok, Paul Dukas, Manuel de Falla, and Florent Schmitt.
2 CDs for 1 “(Lerner's)...sense of color and poetry washed the music with every possible evocative tinge, and the collection, ending appropriately with 'Feux d'artifice', offered Debussy at his most imaginative, played with stunning insight and control.” Newhouse Newspapers | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Debussy - Complete Works for Solo Piano Volume 3
“Håkon Austbø is a committed advocate for these works, vigorous in the Mazurka, floating languidly through Rêverie and bringing out the melancholy of the Valse romantique to the full.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2007 **** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009