Debussy: The Complete Preludes ( Zimerman)

An extraordinary rendition of Debussy s piano preludes, played not notebynote but shapebyshape, colourbycolour. The attention to detail is painstaking notes seem to bend, individual attacks to melt, and the music moves effortlessly between scintillating fire and lakes of calm. The pauses in the music are perfectly controlled: look here, they seem to say, with the minutest gestures, look here at this unbelievable passage. The complaint is sometimes made that this recording is a bit too harsh, even romantic, but this sort of criticism misses the point a little. It seems to assume that impressionistic music is meant to be placid, reflective, maybe even dainty, but that s not really the point. Impressionistic music (if you are happy to go along with the term) is meant to make you imagine something to evoke some kind of image. It might be an image of calm, or of roiling violence, but it s the image the sharpness of its contours which matters, and by that standard this is a recording for th