The 1907 Blüthner grand belonging to the piano collection of Michael and Patricia Frederick is of similar type to the Blüthner that Debussy owned and composed upon. It gets star billing on the CD cover, as well as in pianist Elaine Greenfield’s booklet notes. “Sounds previously alive only in my imagination were suddenly cascading and swirling forth in a way no other instrument I had ever encountered had managed. This is what Debussy heard as he wrote them. This is what he intended.” Indeed, this piano’s gentle resonance and acute timbral distinctions come close to matching the composer’s “piano without hammers ideal”. But so do Walter Gieseking’s Debussy recordings on a modern Steinway, or for that matter, Paul Jacobs’ reference versions played on a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand, to say nothing about dozens of other worthy contenders in this overrecorded repertoire. In other words, it’s the performance that matters.
There’s no questioning Greenfield’s sensitivity to and control over the Blüthner’s tonal peculiarities. She maintains the soft arpeggios and sudden loud outbursts throughout Feux d’artifice in a textural and dynamic perspective that makes the climactic downward glissando all the more surprising. Alluring pedal effects also help sustain Greenfield’s leisurely spacing of slower pieces like Danseuses de Delphes, Des pas sur la neige, La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, Voiles, Feuilles mortes, and La Cathédrale engloutie.
She’s less convincing in lighter, characterful fare. For example, she presents the giddy repeated notes and sudden chordal outbursts in La sérénade interrompue on the same emotional level, while Puck’s Dance, Minstrels, and General Lavine-eccentric “swing” far more than Greenfield’s rhythmic prosody suggests. She meets certain technical challenges with no effort, such as Book 2 No. 11’s difficult-to-shape alternating thirds, although Book 1 No. 3’s soft repeated figurations are not so evenly aligned as they might be. Here Jacobs conveys just as much “atmosphere” with all the notes present and in perfect proportion to each other. Save for pedal noises intruding from time to time and occasional high notes that don’t hold their tuning well, the engineering does both piano and repertoire more than justice.
