German-Japanese and raised in Berlin by two musician parents, Mario Häring is reaping rich rewards, having won over sixteen prizes either as a soloist or with chamber music partners. His fine musicality was discovered by his collaborator Lars Vogt. After a first record dedicated to Russian composers, here he records a Debussy recital on a sumptuous Bechstein piano, a manufacturer of whom Debussy was particularly fond, drawing as he did much inspiration from German pianos.
Playing around with titles, Mario Häring decided to call his album "Les préludes sont des images" with the idea that the Préludes and Images, for Debussy, were part of the same mental journey. A young man of his times, Mario Häring turned to crowdfunding to support this project, using a specialised site to raise money. "I enjoy losing myself in Debussy's atmospheric world of sound", he wrote on the site: "with Debussy's music, I feel a special connection: He was deeply influenced by Asian music. And through my half-Japanese roots, in some passages I actually feel something which reminds me of my Asian half's home." He was determined to undertake this project to mark the centenary of the French composer's death, but with modesty, admitting that he wondered what his interpretation could bring to a repertoire which has already seen so many recordings by "grand masters" of piano. We bet that in the future Mario Häring will have no need of crowdfunders, because his Debussy transports us into a world of dreams, with a perfect mastery of the piano and a glittering sound. But there is nothing ephemeral about this dream: on the contrary, it is sketched out by a sure hand, who can evoke a whole world in just a few strokes of the keys, like masters of the Japanese school. © François Hudry/Qobuz