French pianist
Pascal Rogé's survey of the complete piano music of
Claude Debussy marches on with this third volume featuring the Images, L'isle joyeuse, Réverie, and Pour le piano, plus five shorter works. As before,
Rogé's tone is a many splendored thing: subtly varied in "Reflets dans l'eau," lucidly balanced in "Hommage à Rameau," and ringing and resounding in "Mouvement." And as before, his interpretations are wholly as one with the spirit of the music: bleakly melancholic in D'un cahier d'esquisses; stoically tragic in Berceuse héroïque, and sensually dreamy in Réverie. And as always, his technique is almost impossibly perfect as heard in the superbly poised sonorities of Cloches à travers les feuilles, the sublime luminosity of Et la lune descend sur le temple quit fût, the supreme clarity of Poissons d'or, and, above all, the headlong virtuosity of L'isle joyeuse. Warmly but brilliantly recorded, this disc as well as its companions should be heard by anyone who reveres the French fin de siècle composer.