Sometimes we select a record first for the suave, deep and total sonic pleasure it provides. Of course, we have versions ofImages (Books I And II), ofPrintsof For the piano and of the happy Island of Debussy. Kocsis, Bavouzet, Osborne, not to mention the great old ones Henkemans, Gieseking and Michelangeli (Images), are our companions. But here, we enter a universe that captivates us and does not let go. We owe this not only to Saskia Giorgini, a subtle 39-year-old Italian-Dutch pianist, but also to a sumptuous Bösendorfer piano, tuned to perfection by Siebren van Hoog, and to the sound engineer Jens Jamin, who worked at the Lisztzentrum in Raiding, Austria. Each of these elements deserves its fair share of notoriety, because, particularly in Debussy, the sound universe is an integral part of what we can call “interpretation”. This life of sound in time and space, this richness of harmonics, combined with the musical and stylistic intelligence of the artist, create a great success here.
Click here to listen to an excerpt.
Claude Debussy
★★★★ 1/2
Pictures. Saskia Giorgini. Pentatone PTC 518 7206.
To see in video