Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer's own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

These songs respond to the sheer beauty of Stutzmann's singing like grass to rainfall.

The performances here are distinguished throughout by the evident intelligence as well as the assured technical ability of singer and pianist; but probably the feature that will single out this recital in memory, say a couple of years hence, is the depth, the contralto quality, of the voice. It is not simply that it makes a change (though it surely does that), but that the deep colouring of the tone gives a rather different aspect to several of the songs, particularly the Ariettes oubliees, and often serves them well. The third of the ariettes, ''L'ombre des arbres'', for instance, responds to it like grass to rainfall: there's a glow that wasn't there before. The ending of ''Green'' (''puis que vous reposez'') and, in the Baudelaire settings, the evening-scene of ''Recueillement'', are also lovely examples.

Not that there is any sense of luxuriating. It is not sensuous singing; not, as it were, inviting to stroke the velvet. Attention is very much focused on the words. Yet there is a sheer beauty of sound to enjoy as well, sometimes lovely in itself (as in the last line of Baudelaire's ''Harmonie du soir'') but often as a subtle reflection of mood, as in the diminuendo so finely achieved in ''Il pleure dans mon coeur'' (''Le dueil est sans raison'') from the Ariettes oubliees where the note trails away in quiet thoughtfulness. Sometimes one would welcome more of a smile in the voice, and perhaps in the Histoires naturelles there is opportunity for a little more showmanship, especially in the first, ''Le paon''. But this too has its compensations: the jokes, such as they are, are not killed by coyness, and in the first of the Bilitis songs there is none of that cute wide-eyed-innocence act over the ''ceinture perdue''.

Though recordings of the songs have not been in notably short supply, many of the best are currently unavailable. This new disc is as attractive in its programme as in its performances; presentation and recorded sound likewise. In case a lingering doubt remains, perhaps I should add that Stutzmann is not another of those American girls in Paris, but was born there (in 1965).

-- Gramophone [7/1992]

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 6 -

Debussy: La mer, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Danse &

Walter Gieseking (1933-1947)

DEBUSSY: LE MARTYR DE SAINT-SE

Guarneri Quartet. RCA Silver Seal 60909-2 [with Ravel: Quartet in F; Debussy: Suite bergamasque (Alexis Weissenberg, piano)].

The Guarneri Quartet’s 1973 recording, sounding a little wooly but nonetheless quite lovely on CD, conveys the music with endearing sweetness and warmth. No group has ever gotten closer to the spirit of Debussy’s slow movement, or more beautifully captured its fragrant atmosphere and attenuated, almost heartbreaking sentiment. First violinist Arnold Steinhardt is exquisite here, and the group’s playing overall is remarkably polished. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 5 -

Entr'acte

Wind Chamber Music 1

Poème

Works For Two Pianos

Denmark’s leading instrumentalists Ulla Miilmann (flute) and Tine Rehling (harp) joined forces to record a superb collection of late romantic and impressionistic works by an alley of foremost composers of France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ulla Miilmann and Tine Rehling began their collaboration as duo in 2007. They have since been dazzling wide range of audiences with their pure and elegant interpretation of repertoire with a significant emphasis on French music.

TAKE 2 - DEBUSSY: ORCHESTRAL W

Prophets of the New is a series from Sony focusing on classic recordings of the 20th century's most revolutionary works. Le Sacre du Printemps serves as a point of reference to all who seek to establish the birth certificate of what is still called “contemporary” music.

R E V I E W S

There is a controlled intensity about Boulez's 1971 New York performance of Petrushka... In The Rite of Spring...Boulez is less lyrical than the composer but compensates with relentless rhythmic urgency. The massive vividness of sound matches the monolithic quality of the interpretation.

-- Penguin Guide
reviewing Le Sacre du Printemps previously reissued on Sony 64109

BERLITZ PASSPORT - THE MUSIC O

The pianist Élodie Vignon discovered and explored this perilous repertory of Debussy when she was still very young… She captured its poetic power, and she has never confused it with the vague and the approximate. She understood very early on that, for a pianist, Debussy’s last great cycle presented an inexhaustible reservoir of passion and rigour, of fire and precision, of work and relaxation. Her committed, precise interpretation, that keeps her ever in movement, ever in investigation, shows this, and she does not hide it, declaring that the "Études" never tire her and that, wherever she may be in the world, she feels at home when she plays them. The second part of the album counts twelve poems by the Belgian poet Lucien Noullez written for Élodie Vignon and her vision of the Études. Clara Inglese tell them above the echo of Élodie's music.

Classical Music

An important marker in Debussy’s compositional development, the Fantaisie reflects something of the influence of César Franck’s Symphonic Variations yet embodies his own new aesthetic. Unpublished in Debussy’s lifetime, it is heard here in its 1968 revision. The delicately evocative Rapsodie for saxophone is an exotic work with an ‘oriental’ atmosphere and Spanish or Moorish associations. Although composed as a Conservatoire test piece, the Première Rapsodie for Clarinet has long since entered the repertoire as an important addition for the instrument. The glittering Danses for harp and strings recall Satie’s Gymnopédies, with the Danse profane in particular calling for a degree of virtuosity. Volume 6 of this much-admired series (Naxos 8.572583) was praised for its ‘subtle and sensitive readings’. (Gramophone)

"We've reached Volume 7 in Naxos's superb Lyonnaise exploration of Debussy's orchestral works with the thrilling Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, superbly played here by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. It's a grand showpiece, reminiscent of César Franck's Symphonic Variations but painted in Debussy's inimitable palette."

-- Stephen Pritchard, The Observer [11/19/2011]

Includes work(s) for pno by Claude Debussy. Soloist: François-Joël Thiollier.

Classical Music

(...) But what insights into the chemistry, the constructional and structural wonders of these Pr�ludes do Koroliov's musical-pathological dissections allow? They lead into the inside of this texture, invalidating all that one has experienced for frightful - and then again delightful - moments of thinking and feeling. In a peaceable way, they force one to unbiased expose oneself to a strange experience, yet, in the next moment, a familiar experience once again. (Klassik. Heute. De)

Crossley's playing of ''Brouillards'' (the first Prelude of Book 2) successfully evokes the disturbing fog of a winter night in which objects appear suddenly and menacingly. I actually think the marking Modere suggests a quicker tempo—Gieseking takes 2'44'' as against Crossley's 3'33'', but there again, the admirably sensitive Gordon Fergus-Thompson takes a minute longer than Crossley!... This Debussy is beautifully textured, with fine control of fingers and pedals; indeed, it is most sympathetically presented and the recording, made at The Maltings, Snape, is satisfyingly atmospheric, with a glowing sound rather than a brilliant one... This applies equally to the Estampes and Children's Corner. In the former work. ''Pagodes'' is a touch deliberate, but has lovely sounds; indeed, Crossley's tonal beauty is consistent...

-- Christopher Headington, Gramophone [9/1993]

When Debussy completes the score, based on the eponymous symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck, of Pelleas et Melisande in 1902, the world of opera still abides by Richard Wagner and the upheaval he caused with Tristan und Isolde. But Debussy decides to stand on the exact opposite side, and uses his new opus to preach a new aesthetic creed. In depicting the forbidden love story between the timid Pelleas and the beautiful Melisande, kept apart by an unfortunate marriage, the French composer brings us back to the immortal legend of Tristan and Isolde, but this time showing the world that the future of music could very well lie far away from Wagner’s overwhelming lyricism and outsized rhetoric. This new production, created by one of the rising stars of French stage direction Benjamin Lazar for the Malmö Opera (headed by Ingmar Bergman from 1952 to 1958), encapsulates all the different aspects of this mysterious work, from the oniric poetry invented by Maeterlinck and Debussy to the realism, poignant because openly simple and even mundane, of these profoundly human beings lost in a forest full of sound and symbols that will never let them escape. The young French conductor Maxime Pascal, the Orchestra of the Malmö Opera, and an almost all-French cast (among which the excellent Marc Mauillon and Jenny Daviet), bring forth with intelligence all the refinement and all the vitality this unique and fascinating score has to offer.

THE ROYAL EDITION - DEBUSSY: I