Review
A Debussy interpreter of exceptional class. --International Record Review
Another enjoyable contribution to a very strong cycle. Performance **** Recording ***** --BBC Music Magazine,Sept'11
BIS's recorded sound here is as good as it is in the previous discs,and it clearly conveys Ogawa's dynamic range and her colouristic resources. --IRR,Sept'11
CD Description
Pianist Noriko Ogawa has won critical acclaim for earlier volumes of this Debussy piano music cycle, with her interpretations of the composers sets of Images and of Études singled out as belonging to the finest in the discography. On this the fifth and final disc, Noriko Ogawa again offers us scintillating performances of works both well-known and less often heard. The two Arabesques were among Debussys most popular works already during his lifetime, with hundreds of thousand of copies sold before his death. Another hit was Rêverie, which Debussy himself wanted to suppress, but which at one stage even ended up as No. 1 on the US Billboard chart in a swing arrangement. Less familiar are some of the youthful works, for instance Danse bohémienne, Debussys first piano piece composed at the age of 18. But the two main works on the disc are indisputably the suites Pour le Piano and Suite Bergamasque, which Debussy completed in his maturity.
