Tirimo is a fine pianist with first-rate technical command, and understands Debussy's world well. (Gramophone). "Probably first choice for those wanting a modern digital recording offering the complete set... recording most realistic and natural." (Penguin Guide). "A most enjoyable recital, and one for which listeners will be grateful... What is Impressive is the pianist's integration of fragility and firmness, simplicity and complexity." (Gramophone). "I'm glad to be able to praise a fluid but unhurried Jeux d'eau that is well served, too, by the velvety-rich recorded sound... it 's attractive. So are the Sonatine, and the tenderly solemn Pavane pour une infante d�funte." (Gramophone). "Dickinson made Satie's music a center point of his repertoire, and his thoughtful approach to this highly rewarding music is all his own... variety of articulation and color is fully at the service of the composer." (Penguin Guide).

Classical Music

Strong in Mediterranean atmosphere,... La Mer has an underlying grip... concentrates on evocation at the opening and creates a real pianissimo, helped by the wide dynamic range of the recording... overall there is plenty of excitement, with the LSO virtuosity in the finale matched by the rich-toned ardor of the strings when they rise to the emotional peak of Jeux de vagues.. Fetes proceeds spectacularly, glittering in color... not conventional readings but full of impulse and superbly recorded.

Classical Music

'Claude Debussy is still the greatest musical enigma that has ever existed,' said Aldo Ciccolini. 'You never get to the bottom of his music. That is perhaps why he will never be forgotten: people will never give up trying to make sense of him. Debussy never fails to surprise you and his music has a charm that is quite indefinable.' Ciccolini, though born in Naples, confessed to having a French soul and he distinguished himself as a supremely subtle and illuminating interpreter of the composer who described himself as 'musicien fran�ais'.

Classical Music

A new album from Marc-Andre Hamelin is always cause for celebration. Here in his first Debussy recording for Hyperion Hamelin presents the two books of Images - Debussy's coloristic masterpiece, a bewitching compendium of scents, colors and sounds. Also recorded here is the second book of Preludes, in a poetic and evocative performance.

"Toscanini's scintillating reading of this music is legendary. The sound is old and cramped, but after a few moments under Toscanini's spell, you forget its limitations." - Herbert Russcol, ( La Mer) Guide to Low-Priced Classical Records, 1968

"One had thought it impossible that every detail should emerge quite so clearly, without to some extent impairing the sweep and surge and swell of this marvelous music." - Edward Sackville-West, ( La Mer) The Record Guide

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 there 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'. 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.

(...) 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)

These three figures of turn-of-the-century music, Ravel, Franck and Debussy, do not prompt listeners to hear their works from afar. Their music winds it's way into the innermost channels of human imagination, and through the sound, listeners may feel that they are the protagonists in this shared artistic experience. Pianist Bal�zs F�lei holds the Liszt Ferenc Prize, the Artisjus Prize and the Junior Prima Prize. His repertoire includes over thirty pia-no concertos, including all the concertos of Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, and Bart�k. He is an associate professor and head of department at the Academy of Music, Budapest, and gives masterclasses worldwide. He is the founder and artistic director of the Echo Summer Academy, which is held annually in the K�rolyi Mansion in Feh�rv�rcsurg�.

Helene Schuetz writes of this new release: “The inspiration for this recording and the choice of works came from the Gigue that ends J.S. Bach’s Partita in B flat major. When I first heard it in concert I knew immediately that this composition would work wonderfully for the harp. With the Gigue as my starting point, I began to arrange the Partita for harp. Of course, the instrument does have other tonal qualities than the piano – and, like any instrument, it has its technical limits when it comes to performance practice. When it comes to chromaticism, the mechanics of the harp are more limited than those of the piano, and one only has eight rather than ten fingers to play with. But it was precisely that challenge that fascinated me in the process of arranging the works: you first need to have a clear idea of the work's intention and to have formed your own view of its interpretation. The task then is to find ways and means to develop one's ideas and perhaps to achieve an even clearer interpretation than would have been possible on the original instrument. In this way, arranging the work for another instrument intensifies the performance, because the use of a new instrument allows other, new facets in the compositions to be illustrated and new tonal nuances achieved…”

Classical Music

DEBUSSY 12 Etudes. Estampes. Deux Arabesques. L’Isle Joyeuse • Mariangela Vacatello (pn) • BRILLIANT 94371 (76:40)


Every so often—perhaps inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s eponymous poem—I contemplate things that might have been, and quite frequently my contemplations involve music: What would Beethoven’s 10th have sounded like? How much richer would we be today had Brahms not destroyed his early string quartets out of mortal fear of being called an epigone? Would the world be a different place had Dinu Lipatti been able to carry out his wish to record The Well-Tempered Clavier ? One of the reasons I find these questions so fascinating is because we can neither know their answer nor can we rely on what we do know to hypothesize it—after all, Beethoven’s Ninth is strikingly different from his Eighth; Brahms’s lost string quartets are forever gone; and Lipatti never got around to record a single prelude and fugue by Bach. Before hearing this new recording featuring the young pianist Mariangela Vacatello, it had never dawned on me that Debussy’s late piano works—his set of 12 Etudes for piano—present the perfect Borgesian riddle: Would Debussy have abandoned the Impressionist idiom had he lived another few years, or would we be speaking of Debussy’s Impressionism merely as a phase that eventually yielded to a new musical language?


You may be wondering how my musings about where Debussy’s music may have ended up had the composer not succumbed to cancer at age 56 relate to the task at hand. Well, I respectfully submit that they are relevant here because what I enjoyed the most about Vacatello’s recording is how exquisitely and unapologetically she conveys the striking novelty of these masterpieces. Like Mitsuko Uchida in her classic Philips recording, Vacatello does not unduly look for Impressionism in the etudes, nor does she try to tame these visionary and occasionally wild scores. She does not over-pedal, she does not soft-pedal, she does not play legato when Debussy calls for non-legato, and she does not seek to create tonal haze when the score does not call for such effects. Instead, Vacatello presents these works for what they are­—experiments with a fascinating musical language Debussy had not yet fully figured out.


In the early works, Vacatello is equally compelling. Like her compatriots Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Aldo Ciccolini, and Maurizio Pollini, Vacatello subscribes to the Italian tradition of playing Debussy, which is characterized by rhythmic precision, a stronger emphasis on primary colors, and a certain degree of level-headedness. While it is true that Vacatello’s Debussy does not soar or intoxicate like that of Samson François, I find that it is just as fascinating. I am particularly impressed with L’Isle Joyeuse , in which Vacatello (unlike many pianists who play this piece) refuses the temptation to sectionalize—and, I believe, trivialize—in favor of a cohesive narrative that slowly builds towards apotheosis. The engineering is outstanding. This recording comes with my highest recommendation. Vacatello is definitely a pianist to watch.


FANFARE: Radu A. Lelutiu

After devoting recordings to Ravel and Poulenc, Jos van Immerseel returns to French music, tackling Debussy and his most famous orchestral works. He relies on historic instruments with the aim of blending a singular vision of these scores with a highly rigorous approach.