Originally issued on five full-priced CDs, Aldo Ciccolini’s 1991 EMI Debussy cycle breezed in and out of the catalog in a flash. The discs are now gathered together in a budget boxed set. For less than the cost of dinner and a movie, Ciccolini’s Debussy provides ample food for thought. His hard-nosed sonority is pungent rather than perfumed, which doesn’t quite jibe with the composer’s “hammerless piano” ideal. Sometimes Ciccolini avoids sensuality where it’s most needed, like La puerta del vino (in Preludes Book II) or his slow and static Hommage à Rameau (Images Book I). But more often than not, Ciccolini’s forceful, masculine approach to the Preludes, Images, Estampes, Pour le Piano, Children’s Corner, and sundry short works provide a refeshing corrective to spineless, watery pianism that passes for “impressionism”. Actually the word “expressionism” best describes the pianist’s blunt, Prokofievian recreations of the 12 Etudes.
In addition to the standard canon of solo works, Ciccolini includes the piano reduction of Debussy’s ballet La Boite à joujoux, plus the composer’s two-hand arrangement of his Six Epigraphes antiques for piano duet. You also have a chance to hear the Etude Retrouvée, Debussy’s strikingly different first version of the Etude pour les arpèges composés. Among pianists who’ve recorded Debussy in toto, only Martin Jones’ admirable Nimbus set offers palpable budget-price competition, and the addition of the orchestral work Jeux in a piano transcription. EMI’s notes are in French only.
