DEBUSSY
Complete Music For Piano Duo
Massimiliano Damerini
& Marco
Rapetti, Piano
Brilliant Classics 94448 (3 CDs) /
****1/2
It
may come as a surprise that the works for piano four hands by French composer
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) amount to well over three hours of music. In this
chronological survey dating from 1880 to 1915, one will discern his stylistic
evolution from ambitious teenager to that of an established master.
Some works
will be familiar to general audiences, as the pretty Petite Suite (1886-89)
for piano duet and the more modernistic En Blanc et Noir (1915), his
last but greatest work for two pianos. And then there are the faithful but
monochromatic transcriptions of orchestral favourites, Prelude to The
Afternoon of the Fawn (1894) and La Mer (1905).
The
music to be found in the first two discs is virtually unknown. There is a
single-movement Symphony In B minor (1880), Diane Overture
(1881), The Triumph of Bacchus Suite (1882), First Suite for
Orchestra (1883) and Divertissement (1884), early works which were
never orchestrated. These stylistically belong to the bygone French Belle
Epoque, and hard to identify as classic Debussy.
With Printemps (1887), Marche
Ecossaise (Scottish March, 1891) and the Spanish-flavoured Lindaraja
(1901), his more distinct voice begins to emerge. The Italian duo of
Damerini & Rapetti give sympathetic and best possible accounts of the
obscure pieces, and the performances more than satisfy the appetite for
undiscovered semi-precious gems.
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