Eloquent, characterful playing
Francesco Piemontesi
Naïve V902795
Book II of Debussy’s Préludes has often been criticised for raking over old ground, though hints of cross-reference between Books I and II suggest less a case of recycling than a conscious intention to create transformations or paraphrases. Book II is sometimes more radical harmonically, often written on three staves to convey quasi-orchestral textures. A top choice recording has to make an equally eloquent case for both Books.
In his 2015 recording, Francesco Piemontesi achieves this perfectly. Totally at home in this mercurially enigmatic music, he is peerless in seeing beyond the misleading visual discontinuities of print to the narrative continuity beneath, knitting even the occasional percussive detonations into a seamlessly organic overarching line. His voicing and pedalling are wondrous in their subtlety, and there are many moments of inspired opportunism, such as the sudden pedalfree passages of scampering dryness in
‘Le vent dans la plaine’ or the sculptural insight behind infinitesimal gradations of tempo in ‘Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir’ or ‘Feuilles mortes’.
The more familiar movements occur in Book I. Piemontesi respects the artless simplicity of ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’, sidestepping the mannered results of overthinking expression; a similar approach to ‘Bruyères’, the fifth Prélude in Book II, points up the sense of oblique recapitulation at work. ‘La cathédrale engloutie’ embodies greater momentum than most readings, again discovering a compelling sense of the long line – something which often goes missing as soon as a pianist sells out to rhythmic indulgence in the supposed interests of the atmospheric passing moment
– and ‘Les collines d’anacapri’ has a wonderfully fleet, light-infused character, with Piemontesi’s tone unfailingly
Piemontesi was born to play this music, bringing to it a poetic spontaneity
rounded. The fireworks ending Book II are brilliantly but poetically caught: this pianist is fully alive to the unquiet flickerings beneath moments of apparent stasis, and to the abrupt silences shot through with dramatic tension.
Moreover, it has occurred to him that his wayward ‘Minstrels’ may be nearer unconsciousness than sobriety, their microscopic concentration span perfectly captured at the outset, likewise their maudlin-drunk sentimentality further on. Piemontesi was born to play this music, bringing to it poetic spontaneity and intellectual grasp.