Album

Listeners not familiar with the three previous volumes in Noriko Ogawa's recordings of the solo piano music of Claude Debussy may be surprised by the young Japanese pianist's staggering virtuosity and consummate musicality. The magic of her playing is in her precisely calibrated attack, her brilliant tone, and her nuanced balances, but Ogawa's virtuosity is impossible to overlook. Debussy's etudes are technical studies pitched at the highest level and Ogawa carries them off with a panache that's infectious, and all the more satisfying because Ogawa finds more musical substance in the etudes than most pianists.

Generously filled with appropriate late-period works, including Debussy's elusive and exotic Six Épigraphs Antiques and Les soirs illumines par l'ardeur du charbon (The evenings lit by the glowing coals), the composer's final work written as a gift to the man who supplied his family with coal during the war's cold winters, this disc will be obligatory for anyone who's heard the previous three volumes, and fascinating to anyone interested in the composer. BIS' digital sound is big, clear, and close.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide

CD 1
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer Études, L.136...Book 1 Work 22:36 Noriko Ogawa Piano
1	1.Pour les cinq doigts, d'apres Monsieur Czerny	3:22			$0.99
2	2.Pour les tierces	4:24			$0.99
3	3.Pour les quartes	5:28			$0.99
4	4.Pour les sixtes	4:52			$0.99
5	5.Pour les octaves	2:48			$0.99
6	6.Pour les huit doigts	1:42			$0.99
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer Études, L.136...Book 2 Work 25:54 Noriko Ogawa Piano
7	7.Pour les degrés chromatiques	2:22			$0.99
8	8.Pour les agréments	5:00			$0.99
9	9.Pour les notes répétées	3:16			$0.99
10	10.Pour les sonorités opposées	4:58			$0.99
11	11.Pour les arpéges composés	4:48			$0.99
12	12.Pour les accords	5:30			$0.99
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer Étude retrouvée, for piano Work Noriko Ogawa Piano
13	Étude retrouvée, for piano	5:13			$0.99
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer Intermède Work Noriko Ogawa Piano
14	Intermède	4:05			$0.99
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer 6 Épigraphes antiques, for piano 4-hands, L.131 Work 18:24 Noriko Ogawa Piano
15	1.Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d'été	2:44			$0.99
16	2.Pour un tombeau sans nom	3:57			$0.99
17	3.Pour que la nuit soit propice	2:52			$0.99
18	4.Pour la denseuse aux crotales	2:38			$0.99
19	5.Pour l'Egyptienne	3:39			$0.99
20	6.Pour remercier la pluie au matin	2:34			$0.99
Achille-Claude Debussy Composer Les soirs illuminés par l'ardeur du charbon, album leaf for piano Work Noriko Ogawa Piano
21	Les soirs illuminés par l'ardeur du charbon, album leaf for piano	2:05			$0.99