In Volume 3 of Jean-Pierre Armengaud’s complete Debussy piano music cycle, the multi-movement Suite Bergamasque and Children’s Corner bracket a generous 40-minute selection of short pieces. The Suite’s outer movements are as firm and direct as can be, but the pianist’s logy treatment of Clair de lune unduly emphasizes the dark side of the moon. He plays half of the Children’s Corner suite well, yet he turns in an unevenly fingered Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum, a clunky Serenade for the Doll, and an undercharacterized Golliwog’s Cakewalk (the “Tristan” quotes uneventfully glide by).
While The Little Nigar’s ragtime footwork swings nicely, La Plus que lente’s basic pulse loses its rudder within the first measures, and we’re left sinking until Arthur Rubinstein’s recording comes to rescue us. Next to the fluid, effervescent recordings of the Tarantelle in my collection (including Walter Gieseking, Claudio Arrau, Martin Jones, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Gordon Fergus-Thompson), Armengaud is earthbound and timid, yet he proves stronger and more sustained in the lyrical Reverie and Nocturne. At least Arts provides more alluring engineering than in this cycle’s dreary first two volumes. But as a Debussy pianist, Armengaud remains consistently inconsistent.
