Debussy was very particular about the way in which his music was performed, as evidenced by his often-withering critical writings, as well as the memoirs of musicians who knew him. He had a particular loathing of soi-disant virtuosi. “The fifth finger of virtuosi, what a pest it is!” he once exclaimed. What he meant is that too often pianists would hammer out what they considered to be the ‘melody’, ignoring Debussy’s meticulously balanced chords. I can well imagine what Debussy would say about some of the well-regarded recordings of recent years; he would surely have cordially detested the playing of Michelangeli, for instance. Noriko Ogawa, I suspect, might have found favour with the notoriously hard-to-please composer, and not just because of her nationality (Debussy was a lover of all things Japanese). She follows him to the letter without ever sounding pedantic, and her technique can cope with the most hair-raising of Debussy’s demands. (It was virtuosi that Debussy was against, not virtuosity). The opening of Feuilles mortes is really doucement sostenu et très expressif, while later in the same piece (at un peu plus allant) she realises the four simultaneous strands of material at their prescribed dynamic marks with the greatest precision. Overt virtuosity is rarely called for in the Préludes. When it is (for instance, at the climax of Feux d’artifice), Ogawa is terrific – “like D’Artagnan drawing his sword” as Debussy once said. She is never guilty of over-pedalling; perhaps she kept in mind Debussy’s assertion that he descended from the French eighteenth-century harpsichord-ists. At any rate, there is not a hint of all-purpose ‘impressionism’ about her approach. She has chosen to couple the second book of Préludes, which date from 1913, with other pieces from the last years of his life. The most substantial of these is La Boîte à Jou-joux, a children’s ballet and a cousin of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Ogawa can’t have had many opportunities to perform it live, yet her playing has a wonderful ‘finish’ to it, and she brings the multitudinous cast of characters to vivid life. The piano (a model D Steinway) is a thing of beauty, and BIS’s sound is as good as it gets. Very highly recommended, as are the two previous volumes in the series.

Reviewed by Sandy Matheson