Debussy: Preludes for Piano

Claude Debussy (Composer), Paul Jacobs (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Paul Jacobs
• Composer: Claude Debussy
• Audio CD (May 7, 1992)
• SPARS Code: AAD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000005IWU
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #191,021 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Paul Jacobs was a specialist in the piano literature of the 20th century, which Debussy could be said to have influenced more than any other figure. Jacobs's recordings of the composer's major piano works remain exemplary--the playing is technically fluent and musically imaginative, and the accounts are notable not only for their penetrating insight but for a suavity and expressiveness that bring each piece to scintillating life. The piano sound is slightly veiled but warm and resonant. --Ted Libbey

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

As a young boy, I heard only Walter Gieseking's old mono recordings of the Debussy Preludes, over and over again. They are ethereal, delicate, and beautiful, more so than any mono recording usually sounds. They have also been considered to be the definitive performance of the Preludes, and I loved them.

Then Paul Jacobs came along. His recordings of the Preludes, made in 1978, not only had fantastic sound quality, but Paul's style did Debussy justice where Gieseking's never could, and this listener realized, with astonishment, at how many voices a piano can have. Not every Prelude is a whisper, and although Paul's fingers could make the piano tiptoe through "Danseuses de Delphes," he could make it jump and leap in "Les Collines d'Anacapri." His precision of phrasing and the restraint in his use of dynamics makes the eruption of "Le Vent dans la plaine" startling. And Jacobs makes it sound so easy.

As a writer for Fanfare put it: "I would advise all piano collectors to lose no time in acquiring this marvelous set. If you haven't room, chuck out whatever (now forever obsolete, superseded, palpably inferior) recorded performances you may be giving shelf space."

The hype you have read here and elsewhere about Jacobs's Preludes isn't hype. The five stars I give this CD set is not given lightly. These recordings are really that good. In fact I would, and may someday, crawl over broken glass to retrieve my 2CD set of Paul Jacobs's recordings of the Debussy Preludes, livres 1 et 2.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best, a treasure!, May 13, 1999

By	mop-n-glow "fd" (new york, ny) - See all my reviews

Out of the dozens of recordings of Debussy's Preludes available, this one will probably remain my favorite for life. Mr. Jacobs's sensitivity and skill are staggering and the Steinway sounds just superb. When I think of Debussy I think of THIS recording.

If my music collection were to go up in flames I'd dive in to save this one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars poetic interpretations, August 25, 2006

By	Timothy Paradise (Saint Paul, Mn.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After being extremely disappointed with the Michelangeli recordings I bought of these pieces, I bought the Paul Jacobs' performances.
Jacobs is a poetical pianist, not strictly literal, rather someone who searches for halo
and echo, shine and gloom, adrenaline rush and repose, someone to whom a single note is able to convey musical meaning.
Fellow musicans can learn from him.