Pascal Rogé has finally begun his recording cycle of the complete
Debussy piano works with this disc of the two books of preludes. As expected, it is as well done as one could hope.
Rogé effortlessly shapes the music in these preludes, making them evocative and in some cases, giving them character. Les collines d'Anacapri are delightfully animated, La cathédrale engloutie has moments of breathtaking stillness, and Hommage à Samuel Pickwick is very humorously pompous. Yet for all the dimension that
Rogé puts into these, which is picked up completely by the excellent sound, there is a consistency in the proportions and a reliability in his tone that tell you unmistakably that these are by
Debussy. It's an auspicious start for
Rogé and the new label Onyx.