Customer Reviews

Claude Debussy: Préludes

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Debussy is my favorite composer and my music collection is home to multiple versions of every one of his important works. This recording was not welcome there for long. While many have found great pleasure in Zimerman's traversal of the preludes (Gramophone magazine placed it in its "100 greatest recordings of all time" edition) I was not at all pleased with the harsh sound of the DG recording, which robs the music of whatever charm Zimerman may have to offer, and I have since unburdened myself of this expensive set with absolutely no regrets. I know other Debussy lovers who had a similar reaction. To quote the more reliable Penguin Guide: "There is more than a hint of hardness in climaxes...some may find the level of intensity too much to live with." If you must find out for yourself, be sure to go for one of the used copies available for nearly 20 dollars less than the new ones, because there is a strong possibility that your reaction may not differ much from mine and my Debussy loving friends.

Not a lot of people know that Debussy had a reputation for being a "barbaric" pianist during his conservatory days. What a contrast to the hazy impressionist we usually like to see him (and play him) as. And now here we have Zimerman strongly characterizing each prelude with an almost "barbaric" force (or should I say "vividness"?) when called for. One could almost say that he overcharacterizes, but that is a good fault! For once, these preludes are not overpedalled -- thus clarifying many textures (such as the opening of "Fireworks"). My only reservation is the fact that Zimerman does not take into account the idosyncratic meter/tempo changes in "The Sunken Cathedral." What a pity -- this set would've been perfect otherwise. But I certainly don't care. I'll play "The Sunken Catheral" to myself, but for the rest, Zimerman is just incomparable. This is a prime example of virtuosity serving the music, and not the other way around.

There are very few "pure piano" CDs that I feel as strongly about as this one. Zimermann brings out the colors and variations of this instrument like hardly anybody else. This is a spacy, at times exotic recording, painting a picture of post romantic modern romanticism like no one else before or since. Forget Pollini, forget Perahia, forget Argerich, forget Bronfman; all great artists in their own, don't get me wrong; and take this one and see the clarity and the transparency, the punctuation and the timbres, of, say, the "Danceuses de Delphes" or "Le Vent dans la Pleine", and enjoy and dream and breathe...

More art than artistry, exactly how I feel a Debussy should be. No haste, only the music itself! It's not a showpiece in terms of virtuosity, but like "La Mer", it has a life on its own and Zimermann lets it shine as such!

Exceptional.

Everything Zimerman does is worth a hearing and is better by a ways than most of what's out there. His Chopin is especially good. But in the case of Debussy (and Chopin too, for that matter--see my reviews of Moravec's recordings), there's something better. The best recordings of Debussy around are those of Zoltan Kocsis, of which there are three (in order of their appearance): Suite Bergamesque*Pour le piano*Estampes*Images (oubliees) on Philips 412 118-2 released when Kocsis was just a babe in arms but what a babe!; Images*Arabesques*L'isle joyeuse on Philips 422 404-2; Preludes*Children's Corner Suite on Philips 456 568-2 a two-disc set. These are absolutely brilliant recordings, flawlessly performed and recorded. Sadly, they're not listed on Amazon, so do your local record store a favor and get them there.

This is one of the most remarkable displays of fine piano playing around. Even as a fan of Zimerman who has come to expect the finest music-making from him in various genres, it amazed me. It is exquisitely crafted, idiomatic, multicolored playing that does not sound stilted in any way. The playing is of the highest order throughout (as is the recorded sound). It runs the gamut from brilliantly virtuosic technical displays (Debussy was a concert virtuoso as a young man) to the damped effects unique to Debussy that are redolent of that uniquely acrid and piquant miasma of sound vapors that characterize his impressionism. The execution is always precise, never "moody," rhythmically correct without being rigid, and always appropriate. One would have to go back to Gieseking to find Debussy played as well, and in my opinion (whether it is due to Zimerman's own genius or modern acoustics and engineering) this is still superior. If you have any interest in Debussy's two books of piano preludes don't dawdle...buy it. Deeply satisfying.

I think I like more his Chopin than Debussy. I feel it's little bit too academic playing, lacking a spiritual concept in conjunction with a little bit on romantic site. Debussy can not be romantic, when that appeals in a quality of playing it becomes schmaltz. I would recommend Giorgi Latsabidze's interpretation of Debussy's Preludes where you find and discover a great range of varies colors and make you really forget that a piano is a percussion instrument. Latsabidze's tone is very rare and recording is superb, although he recorded only second book.

Debussy knew something was in the conceptual air, sure the sulphur of World War One,but the end of diatonic thinking,reaching the ends of fruitful lands with Wagner's monolith programs and the symphonic structure bursting at the seems of length.
Debussy of course could not think beyond this paradigm,not only in terms of organizing pitch,and intervallic distributions, but musical structure itself,always pouring his elegantly refined,rarefied textures into traditional forms."Form" Adorno was to claim was the place where modernity was to live or not, and he had mildly derogatory things to say about "musical impressionism" a term he loathed but utilize nonetheless.But for Debussy form was a highly developed only lastly at the end,as if it was a dimension he had missed,had abandoned as the "Etudes" came to prove with distributions of Sections inverted, re-inverted, or simply on-going without materials repeating A-B-D-E.He could only simply summon fragments,images and icons that would serve his "tonality".

Not since Walter Giesiking(WG) has such vision and originality been brought to these Two Books of "Preludes". Zimerman(contra WG) however knows modernity, has lived,experience whatever modernity has/had to offer,so there is a beneath-the-surface violence within these preludes,a raw edge to the timbre of the piano,an internal sense of timbre of how timbre lives; but it is "within" them, they rumble gong-like and resonate from within as "Le vent dans la plaine" with its incessant arpeggiations interpolated with the fragments of melodic gesture..It is as if melodic lines are really not all that important or where the narrative should be focused. The more innovative ones are for Zimerman the norm as the floating feathery whole tone "voiles", "sails",small boats that are attached to the harbor but can gently drift as long as the tie allows them,this is the first exhibition of musical stasis,something that was to dominate the 20th Century. My favorite are the more introspective ones as "pas sur la neige, "footsteps in the snow",again this is simply time being excavated,less granite like in timbre much like the music Webern was writing,the "bagatelles" and "string trio", certainly his "Piano Variations" has the same sensitivity to the magic of timbre of discreet musical space,private.
Book 2 of the "Preludes" is almost like it was written by another composer and sees a more sophisticated Debussy, at home with his innovations now,and soars to greater timbral highs,less orchestral in many ways and much more abstract in conception,as "Brouillards" and "Bruyeres". But Debussy also comes to smell the theatre,the commonplace roar of the crowd; the greasepaint on "General Lavine, and the "cakewalk" exhibited here. "Feuilles mortes" again summon the image of leaves tossed indeterminately yet within a prescribed space of a Parisian alleyway of cold grey pavement and again Zimerman approach is interesting with modernity placed in the forefront of his conceptual narrative.

The cds are fabulous!! The case was broken when I opened the package, however, that is not really a problem for me because the cds are ok. I'm just mentioning it for the seller -- perhaps the packaging could have been a bit more protective. I would do business with this seller again, I am satisfied overall with the price, the promptness of receipt and the condition of the recordings!