GIESEKING Debussy: Preludes (1953/54) - PAKM061

REVIEW Preludes Book 1

A definitive version. Tackling them afresh - this is no re-issue - Gieseking brings to the wonderful collection of pieces all the qualities of poetry they require. Debussy, exacting from the piano more and more colour and effect, set his sights high, but every nuance, every shade of balance, and every inflection of tempo are fully realised on this occasion.

The Preludes are for the most part intimate and domestic, and reasonably simple as far as the plain notes are concerned. So Gieseking, very appropriately, plays them in an intimate manner. But now and again there is a flurry, and a surge of activity in the music, and here the domestic pianist is caught out; but not, of course, Gieseking, who uses his abundant technical resources not to exhihit themselves, but to enable his masterly control of the shape of the music to be kept fully operative throughout the occasional whirlwind - in the middle of Voiles, for example, where for a few bars tonality and animation emerge from the shadows of the whole-tone scale; or in La dance de Puck, where the decoration points, without interrupting, the basic rhythm in a masterly way. But in every one of the Preludes there are a dozen lessons for the pianist, and a dozen reasons for the enchantment of the listener, who is also well served by the recording - steady and mellow, it is ideally suited for its purpose. The surfaces of the copy at hand are not "silent"; but that is almost the only direction in which it might be reasonable to seek improvement in this outstanding Issue.

For listeners with an eye to the historical, Cortot's famous playing of this same set of Preludes is available on H.M.V. BLP1006. They were reviewed in their SP form by W.R.A. in February, 1951; but it must be admitted that at the time of their recording Cortot was not at his best, and they are not wholly representative of his playing. A dispassionate listener must certainly choose Gieseking, who gets a better recording, and whose performance is suffused with far greater poetry and backed by a more adequate reserve of technical power than was available on the earlier occasion.

M. M., The Gramophone, January 1954

 

REVIEW Preludes Book 2

Only a supremely optimistic or a very vain pianist will attempt to record these Preludes now that Gieseking has done so. Neither the playing nor the recording can be faulted; after all, he has for years been the chief exponent of Debussy's piano music outside France, and I very much doubt whether any French pianist could better these performances. Gieseking has both the understanding and the technique for conveying the half-lights and shadowy understatement in these pieces, as also the humour that General Lavine and Samuel Pickwick need. Anyone who already has the first book of Preludes recorded by the same artist in 1954 will automatically buy this set, and I hope many other people will do so too.

R. F., The Gramophone, November 1955