Listeners not familiar with the three previous volumes in
Noriko Ogawa's recordings of the solo piano music of
Claude Debussy may be surprised by the young Japanese pianist's staggering virtuosity and consummate musicality. The magic of her playing is in her precisely calibrated attack, her brilliant tone, and her nuanced balances, but
Ogawa's virtuosity is impossible to overlook.
Debussy's etudes are technical studies pitched at the highest level and
Ogawa carries them off with a panache that's infectious, and all the more satisfying because
Ogawa finds more musical substance in the etudes than most pianists.
Generously filled with appropriate late-period works, including
Debussy's elusive and exotic Six Épigraphs Antiques and Les soirs illumines par l'ardeur du charbon (The evenings lit by the glowing coals), the composer's final work written as a gift to the man who supplied his family with coal during the war's cold winters, this disc will be obligatory for anyone who's heard the previous three volumes, and fascinating to anyone interested in the composer. BIS' digital sound is big, clear, and close.