Although Noriko Ogawa’s beautifully rounded tone mirrors Debussy’s ideal “hammerless” piano aesthetic, her musical ideas are hit and miss. In the Children’s Corner suite, for example, she overphrases the ironic wit from Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum. Similarly, the little holdbacks and ritards Ogawa sprinkles throughout Golliwog’s Cake-walk undermine the sense of surprise Debussy intends in his fleeting “Tristan” quote. On the other hand, the other ragtime-influenced work, The Little Nigar, has enough swagger and rhythmic verve for 20 pianists.
Some of the Preludes Book 1 are quite evocative and full of concentration. Ogawa gorgeously sustains the slow-moving lines and multi-textural levels throughout Des pas sur la neige and La cathédral engloutie. By contrast, the pianist is sometimes careless regarding Debussy’s carefully considered dynamic and tempo indications. She plays some of La sérénade interrompue’s quiet staccato figures too loud and ruins the composer’s intended guitar effect in the process. By making a diminuendo rather than the sudden crescendo Debussy asks for in the ninth measure of Les collines d’Anacapri, Ogawa misses the whole point of how this and the preceding measures joyfully lead into the work’s first climax.
If this all sounds like critical nitpicking, imagine an earnestly prepared entrée garnished with just a pinch too much salt, or not enough for that matter. In short, Ogawa’s Debussy boasts unquestionable virtues; but I’d first investigate Preludes Book 1 recordings by Paul Jacobs, Claudio Arrau, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Walter Gieseking, or Jean-Rudolph Kars, plus an unusually expansive, intense, and personalized reading by Zaidee Parkinson (available from Connoisseur Society).
