This new release on the Genuin label is the introduction to a 4 CD Blüthner-Debussy collection. Praised by the critics for her fiery temperament, exceptional charisma and great command of her instrument in the romantic and modern repertoires, Brazilian-born pianist Juliana Steinbach is considered as one of the most gifted artists of the young generation.

Claude Debussy was profoundly permeated by his French roots. However, his Ballad demonstrates that Russian influences from Tchaikovsky also played an important role in his compositions. In works such as the Danse bohemian and the Arabesques, the fusion of both French and Russian inspiration comes together for a unique aural experience.

Genuine presents the third release in the "Homage 'a Debussy" series. This time, we are introduced to young Chinese pianist Chenyin Li. Chenyin has collected an impressive array of international first prizes including the European Beethoven Gold Medal, the Jacques Samuel Competition, the Sheffield Piano Competition, the Dudley International Competition and the Campillos International Piano Competition.

The young, talented Finnish-Russian pianist Julia Dahlkvist has provided the finale in the four-part Bluthner-Debussy cycle on GENUIN. And she shows that etudes certainly do not have to be dull, nor do children's pieces have to be only for young people. From the slightly elegiac, finely satirical tones of Doctor gradus ad parnassum (Children's Corner) to the ecstatic chord sequences of the last Etudes, she works out the infinitely detailed richness of Debussy's piano works with superior technique and audible joy in the tone colors.

Debussy completed his two books of Preludes in 1910 and 1913 respectively, and they contain some of his most visionary and poetic writing for piano. There are evocations of calm seascapes, delicate wind tracery, and snow-covered landscapes. Some moments are steeped in antiquity, such as La cathedrale engloutie, others in expressive portraiture, as in La fille aux cheveux de lin. There is even a cake-walk. The Preludes are performed here in the subtle and colouristic orchestrations of muchadmired Slovak-born composer Peter Breiner. Throughout it's history, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra has played an important part in Scotland's musical life, including performing at the opening ceremony of the Scottish Parliament building in 2004. Jun Merkl has appeared as a guest conductor with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Cleveland, NHK Symphony, Tonhalle Zurich, and the Munich, Oslo and Czech Philharmonics among others, and at the Met, Covent Garden, Vienna State and Dresden Semper Operas.

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

This is a highly realistic-sounding recording of a piano four-hands recital from the position of the players. In other words the keyboard is spread in front of the listener with the top end distinctly to the right. One can hear the pedalling and even the breathing of these two. I do slightly question the decision to record from this perspective in that no audience member is able to sit like this. However such a view is not unique in the recording world and they can be forgiven because it sounds so good. The engineering is not 100% perfect - there is a clear editing error in track 4 at 3.08, as if the digital scissors slipped. A reminder that modern recordings are made up of often hundreds of edits, considering which it is well disguised the rest of the time.

What of the music? Most collectors will have a substantial amount of Debussy's delicious piano music, but this collector discovered that most of this CD was new to him, a pleasure in itself. The early Petite Suite is the most famous music present. The even earlier Première Suite d'orchestre was only published in 2008 in this four-hand version. It is a lovelypiece throughout its full 26 minutes and does not sound like anyone except Debussy. The Six Épigraphes antiques are late Debussy and display his extraordinary command of advanced harmony. The ear is constantly tickled by the most strange sounds. The recital is completed by the rare 1st version of the Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire.

The two pianists are new to me and display a high degree of togetherness, if not the pin-sharp unity of, say, Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky. Given such unusual fare this is a fine set of performances and mostly very well recorded indeed. The notes by Gérald Hugon are detailed and well structured - and translated into elegant English by Susannah Howe. Hugon tells the purchaser everything he is likely to want to know about the discovery of the early compositions and their complex history, and then goes on to discuss each piece thoroughly. We have grown to expect such quality from Naxos, another star to them.

– Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

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

Catherine Kautsky is professor of music and chair of keyboard studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and boasts an enviable multi-faceted resume of performing and writing credits. Nearly everything about her recording of Debussy’s 24 Preludes is just right, from the relaxed animation and subtle gradations of tone throughout Danseuses de Delphes to Feux d’artifice’s combination of neo-Lisztian bravura and dry wit. The flickering quality of Voiles’ double notes somehow lightens the static whole-note-scale harmony.

Kautsky ‘s intimately scaled reading of Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir brings out the music’s implicit minuet feeling that we don’t hear in heavier interpretations. In Des pas sur la neige, Kautsky not only makes the soft left-hand triplets and expressive right-hand melody timbrally distinct, but her faster than usual tempo also conveys a lighter, more floating ambience than today’s solemn, bleaker norm. Kautsky also communicates the ragged dance qualities of La serenade interrompue, La danse de Puck, Minstrels, and General Lavine–eccentric to perfection, although La puerta del vino moves too fast and impatiently for its habañera rhythms to seduce.

While many pianists make mush out of Brouillards’ middle-register chords, Kautsky clarifies their inner rhythms, although her very capable handling of Book 2 No. 10’s alternating thirds yields to Steven Osborne’s brisker, more shimmering rendition. Her lovely account of La cathedral engloutie observes the unmarked yet implied tempo changes Debussy made in his 1913 Welte-Mignon piano roll recording (as do Osborne and Paul Jacobs, but not, interestingly enough, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli). If the tumultuous Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest lacks Osborne’s super-precise dynamic calibration and surface sheen, the sensitively nuanced Ondine and La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune compensate. The engineering’s warm piano sonority and discreet resonance befits Kautsky’s intelligent and insightful Debussy artistry.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

On this disc, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune – possibly Claude Debussy’s most popular work for orchestra – is framed by two of his greatest achievements in the medium, La Mer and Images pour orchestre. All three works are programmatic, but Debussy’s concern was to create an atmosphere rather than any naturalistic likeness. The Prélude is a case in point – while taking his inspiration from a pastoral poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, Debussy famously told a conductor who wanted a more detailed explanation: ‘It’s a shepherd playing the flute, sitting on his bum in the grass!’ In La Mer, Debussy abstains from the various clichés of so many other musical depictions of water, and instead creates an immediately recognizable seascape, largely through a pioneering use of various instrumental timbres, once described as ‘an impressionism of sounding dots’. Soon after La Mer, the composer started on Images, in which he went even further: although using a large orchestra, Debussy mainly avoids big sonorities, concentrating instead on unusual sound combinations and on transparency. His aim was compose a cycle focusing on the colours of three countries, while as far as possible avoiding the clichés associated with their music. Of its three panels, the expansive middle one, Ibéria, is often performed as an independent piece, but its Spanish colouring takes on new shades when framed by Scottish mists and the freshness of spring in France. The present disc combines new recordings by Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lan Shui with the team’s acclaimed performance of La Mer, first released in 2007 on Seascapes, a programme of sea-related works. The reviewer in American Record Guide called it ‘the most astounding, effective, and beautiful recording of La Mer I have ever heard’ and in BBC Music Magazine it was described as ‘an unequivocally world-class performance’.

A stroll along the Seine – Notre Dame reflected in the waters below – the Eiffel Tower illuminated in evening skies – bistro conversations echoing in the streets of the Left Bank. + Parisian scenes such as these come to mind when listening to the nuances of pianist Kathryn Goodson’s debut Navona Records release, Belle Nuit, a collection of works from La Belle Époque and beyond, with arrangements for piano and wind instruments. + Ms. Goodson & friends express the imagery of love, loss, and passion through works by Debussy, Duparc, Fauré, Franck, Messiaen and more.

Even though the merits of Debussy’s music can be appreciated most fully in his orchestral and vocal compositions, works for piano occupy an important place in his output. His pieces for piano solo are mainly small, chamber forms, of which the present CD features three cycles. Pianist Piotr Machnik, prizewinner of numerous national and international piano competitions, has embarked on many foreign recital and concert tours that have taken him to Japan, Turkey, Kuwait and across Europe. He also pursues a teaching career as a member of faculty at Kraków Music Academy, his alma mater, since 2008.

Founded in 2003, the Daroch Trio is a family affair, made up of three siblings: Anna Daroch (violin), Maria Daroch (piano), and Tomasz Daroch (cello). Their debut in their native city of Łódź, Poland met with high critical acclaim, inspiring them to continue along their artistic path. They are all graduates of the Henryk Wieniawski Music School in Łodź. Their new Dux CD finds the trio playing three important and challenging piano trios well-established in the chamber repertoire, by Dvořák, Debussy and Ravel.

With this release, SOMM continues its series with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the remarkable pianist Valerie Tryon. It brings together three French works for piano and orchestra. Valerie Tryon's career as a concert pianist began while she was still a child. Before she was twelve she had broadcast for the BBD and she was one of the youngest students ever to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Music. Tryon's career has extended from England where she has played with many of the leading orchestras and condutors.

After the release of their first CD "White", which received an ECHO Klassik award, the Amaryllis Quartett continues it's successful CD series with "Blue". This time, alongside the shimmering magic of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, the young, internationally acclaimed and award-winning musicians perform the world premiere of a quartet by the Chinese composer Lin Yang, who has dedicated the work to them. It is impressive how the tonal concentration of contemporary music and the richness of impressionistic works unfold when juxtaposed. State of the art quartet playing at the highest level!