Who is the best Debussy interpreter?

[chong777]

I do not know many Debussy interpreters. Who plays Debussy's piano music best?

[arensky]

Michelangeli.

[pianistimo]

Aren't there some recordings of Debussy playing Debussy.  Wasn't one of Debussy's students a sort of 'passer on of secrets.'  I'm trying to think of his/her name.  I think it was  a her.  And, she taught at the Paris Conservatory.

[Nightscape]

Michelangeli lacks spontaneity - sometimes it sparkles with brilliance but other times it sounds overly rehearsed.  Michelangeli is best in certain pieces.  I like Laurent-Aimard for the Etudes, and the newer recording of the complete works by Gordon Fergus-Thompson is really amazing too (especially if you like some of the more obscure piano pieces).

Many will recommend Walter Gieseking as well, and you may like him but personally his interpretations do not sit well with me.  You also have to contend with terrible audio quality, which really ruins the mood for me - I would much rather hear Debussy played on the beautiful and sonorous tones of a piano and not a piece of sheet metal placed in an ajoining room with the door closed and static playing.

[nyonyo]

Many will recommend Walter Gieseking as well, and you may like him but personally his interpretations do not sit well with me. 

I agree with you. His interpretation can be correct if many piano experts said so, but his playing just does not sound beautiful to me.....

[counterpoint]

Michel Beroff

Yuri Egorov

[dnephi]

Gieseking without a doubt for me.

[gymnopedist]

I love Richters recording of ...le vent dans le plaine, so atmospheric. Michelangeli is nice as well, though i have to agree about the occasional over-rehearsed feeling... Debussys widow said that Gieseking was the pianist whose style of playing most resembled her husbands, and i think that there are real gems among his recordings, in spite of the recording quality.

Too bad Debussys daughter died young, Marguerite Long (i think) said she had learned quite a few things from her dad.

[retrouvailles]

Pierre-Laurent Aimard's Debussy is probably the best I have heard. His etudes, preludes, and images are sublime.

[jakev2.0]

Michelangeli, definitely.

[soliloquy]

Phillipe Entremont.


No question.

[jlba3]

Arrau is sublime 

[dnephi]

William Kapell. 

Quite simply put.

[communist]

Sviatoslav Richter

[alessandro]

Sviatoslav Richter

I love Richters recording of ...le vent dans le plaine, so atmospheric.

Although it is strange, I often feel his Bach or his Rachmaninoff kind of rude and harsh (which is nice in some of Rachmaninoff's Preludes, or Bach's preludium), I also was totally 'well I don't find the words for it', totally...  I heard a recording (a double CD 'In Memoriam') of Richter playing Debussy and it was so ambient, atmospheric, dreamy, a truly wonderful, unforgettable experience, the best interpretation I heard till now...

[ptyrrell]

I like Pascal Roge

[j.s. bach the 534th]

An 8th grader I know named Jeremy...............................

[steza]

Walter Gieseking without a shadow of doubt!

[thelastetude]

Vladimir Horowitz- I have several recordings of him, especially w/ his Preludes and several pieces in his last recording and they are AMAZING.

His French and Italian (Scarlatti, Clemente, etc.) interpretations are second to none, easily rivaling the top performers of our time

[birba]

Gieseking, Michelangeli.  But here, again, we confront the same argument we had with Beethoven.  What is a Debussy interpreter?  Etheral tone?  Pedaling mastery?  He is certianly played differently then Beethoven or Gershwin - BUT there are as many ways to approach his music as there are sublime pianists.  Rubenstein was a superb Debussy player, but not considered an expert, as such.  He was just a first-class musician and pianist who knew how to approach different styles and periods.  It's really a hard nut to crack.

[kaligon]

Michelangeli.  Stands head and shoulders above the rest, in my opinion, for both technique and beauty.  No matter how many times I hear his Debussy recordings, the next time they still seem fresh and inspired and gorgeous.

[communist]

myself 

[iumonito]

How intersting; lots of very contrasting names thrown out there.

Most of the Debussy recordings available are made from rolls, and my impression is that they were not done very artistically.  There are electric recordings of Debussy accompanying on the piano, but I have not heard those.  They should be very interesting.

Kapell and Horowitz's reading is clear and striking; Benedetti Michelangeli, Arrau, and Richter's much more atmospheric.  These five play romantic Debussy.  More recent exponents of this approach include Bunin and (somewhat surprisingly) Pollini.

Then you have Gieseking, Robert Schmitz, and later Krystian Zimerman, Martin Jones, and Ziggy Weissenberg, all of whom project an anti-romantic, highly objective Debussy.  I would put Pierre-Laurent Aimard here.  There is no question he is a rock of a player, although for my taste, I don't feel anything when I hear him in this repertoire (unlike in his Ligeti and Messiaen).

I personally love Claude Frank's Debussy, which I find very beautiful; romantic in feeling but not sentimental in expression.  Bolet (my favorite, although he recorded so little of it0 has a little disk of preludes, played very much in this spirit.  I would say this somewhat neo-classical approach (which is romantic in content and emotional intensity, but classical in proportinality, elegance, and grace) can be traced back to Cortot.  I would say Entremont and Paul Jacobs would go in this bucket as well.

Then you have Rubinstein (and now Barenboim), somewhere between the romantic and the neoclassical.

I think choosing one or the other as the ultimate is a little parochial; after all, it is a matter of taste - and in Debussy (in words of Massenet: an "enigma") one may resonate strongly with one aspect of his music and not at all with another.

[indutrial]

I have a bunch of Debussy discs from Naxos 'complete piano' series that I rather like. The Martin Jones set I've got is nice, but sounds very academic as opposed to the Naxos pianist (can't remember the name).

[birba]

"Ziggy" Weisenberg?! - How did that come out of Alexis?  Or is it his nephew, brother or lover?

[minor9th]

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's Chandos CDs are getting rave reviews from most critics. I haven't heard his Debussy recordings yet, but his Maurice Ohana Etudes CD reveals him to be a formidable pianist.

[thorn]

Aren't there some recordings of Debussy playing Debussy.  Wasn't one of Debussy's students a sort of 'passer on of secrets.'  I'm trying to think of his/her name.  I think it was  a her.  And, she taught at the Paris Conservatory.

the name that comes to mind is Marguerite Long- I know she studied with Ravel but not sure about Debussy?

I love Ogawa's recordings- particularly the Images.

[birba]

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's Chandos CDs are getting rave reviews from most critics. I haven't heard his Debussy recordings yet, but his Maurice Ohana Etudes CD reveals him to be a formidable pianist.

Maybe his recordings, but he got a scathing review at the Kennedy center.  They said he wasn't even near technically up to par with op. 106.  You can read the review in Google.

[shasta]

I second Pascal Roge.

[ivanapsc]

Walter Gieseking

[thalberg]

Michelangeli.

Good call.  I add my vote to this.

[gerryjay]

the video of michelangeli playing the first book of preludes it's one of my favorite music moments.

another record that i love is uchida's douze etudes.

it's interesting to notice that debussy's performance did reach a high-standard level, and it's difficult to see a serious pianist (from undergraduate students to major recitalists) that doesn't have at least a pair of well-played preludes. i would only regret some pasteurization, i mean, it seems to have exist an overwhelming rule above one's decisions of touch, speed, pedalling.

best!

[sitbon09]

Check out Debussy Complete Works for Piano volumes by Jean Efflam Bavouzet.  Received Editor's choice Gramphone magazine.  I have to agree.  Great listening!

[kepler]

I like Paul Jacob's Debussy's Etudes. Krystian Zimerman's performance of the preludes is great; i think it won a gramophon award. Jean yves thibaudet plays the images on youtube, which i think are amazing.

[harmonybear]

I haven't heard a performance or recording of 'Poissons d'or' that even comes close to Gieseking's. I would say the same of his 'Jardins sous la plouie.' Gieseking lets us experience the naturalistic flow and sweep of Debussy's atmospheres by attending with scientific precision to the score. That precision is tempered by extraordinarily supple technique. No detail or algorithmic complexity is blurred. The wisdom that Gieseking imparts to us is that Debussy is surely a 'romantic' in the sense of seducing and enchanting the listener. But the romance and the seduction do not and cannot come from playing his music with overly effusive expression. The design, clearly revealed or subtly exposed, does the magic. To my ears Debussy accomplishes two miracles simultaneously: he portrays (draws, paints, photographs, films . . .) aspects of natural events that are powerfully evocative. And, at the same time, he expresses the human sensations that arise from seeing the tail of a goldfish flash beneath rippling water; our surprise and wonder in experiencing ephemeral beauty. Gieseking balances those objective and subjective worlds better than anyone I've heard yet.

Vis-a-vis another writer's complaints about recording fidelity: I'd love to hear Gieseking as clearly as if he were playing a great piano in my living room but I have no problem hearing his artistry and, indeed, I am easily transported through what is now considered to be a low-tech and noisy medium.

So, in short, as many others expressed: Gieseking, no question.

[49410enrique]

i have an overlapping favorite for this catty, Gordon Fegus-Thompson, sometimes depending on the particular performance pierre laurent aimard but as an overall pick my vote goes to Thompson. He's also my go to guy (modern) for Scriabin (I like Sofrinsky for historical recordings/vintage).

[fftransform]

Entremont and Lortie.

[harkin]

Could never choose one as best.

Among my favorites:

Sviatoslav Richter
Paul Jacobs
Marcelle Meyer
Samson Francois
Phillipe Entremont
Edward Kilenyi
Yvonne Lefebure
Phillipe Cassard
Jacques Février
Emil Gilels
Paul Baumgartner

many more...