Walter Geiseking Debussy: Images, Pour Le Piano, Estampes

Here is the first volume of Walter Gieseking’s legendary complete Debussy recordings from 1953-1954. They were the first complete cycle ever put on record and display an incredible variety and delicacy.

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt has devoted many creative energies to Bach, and it shows in this reading of Debussy favorites (and a few less common works): Hewitt's is a rather precise and tempo-consistent Debussy, light on the atmospherics but with technical agility to spare. What you'll think of this may well depend on how you see the nature of Debussy's break with the French Romantic tradition: did it involve a dryness of expression, or is the usual hazy vision the right one? If your answer tends toward the former, you're likely to find Hewitt's playing a revelation here. Even if you don't, there are many nice moments, like the perfectly balanced grace of Clair de lune (track 9) and of the lesser-known Deux arabesques (tracks 12 and 13).

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 - Debussy: Images pour orchestre - Michael Tilson Thomas
MP3 256kbps | 156 MB | FRONT COVER
Classical | 1 CD | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | Release Date: 2000 | RAR 1% Recovery | RS.com

This is an extremely welcome release for fans of Michael Tilson Thomas: the first CD appearance of a legendary recording with the Boston Symphony he made (as its new assistant conductor) in March 1970. At that point (still only in his mid-20s), Tilson Thomas was becoming notorious for introducing provocative new music by the likes of Steve Reich, but he was also stirring up a rather moribund classical music scene. Just imagine the ethos in those days, when talk of the demise of the symphony orchestra as an absurd irrelevance was gloomier even than it is now: in rushed MTT with a super-infusion of excitement and confidence to rouse the players–and the audience. MTT was already proving his deep affinity with Russian composers (which would be followed many years later by his enormously successful accounts of Prokofiev and Stravinsky).