Octo_Russ

Debussy - Images Books 1 & 2 [Arrau]

More Claudio Arrau, only a couple of days ago i spoke about his Brahms box set, and last month i listened to his Estampes from this set [15th October 2010], what a wonderful Artist he is, and it's great that he left us a legacy of these 'Arrau Edition' box sets, the photography is excellent [by Christian Steiner], a real treasure to acquire and own one of these handsome sets, these books of Images were recorded in 1979.

All of Debussy's Images are evocative, they tell a story, small tone poems for the piano, on this listen i really liked the last piece of Book 1 'Mouvement', and as the title suggests, it's all about 'movement', it's quite mesmerising, it's nicer to just sit back and listen to this rather than writing about it!, the genius of Debussy and Arrau come together in perfection, i marvel at the way this 'old' man Arrau can have this superb dexterity [76 years of age].

It starts off with almost a morse code signal by one hand [0:00+], and blurry warblings by the other [0:06+], one hand hovers over the other, hitting notes either side of the other, as both hands want to use the same space on the keyboard, it becomes more agitated, and then there's the treble outbursts echoed immediately by the bass outbursts in mirror image [0:32-0:45], and then what lovely sonorous notes by the right treble [1:00-1:09], expertly caught by Arrau here, and further along broken morse code sounds coming from the right hand treble [1:41-2:11], making superb thrilling music, right after the opening starts up all over again [2:12+], right at the end the right hand runs up the keyboard into the treble stratosphere [2:56-3:23], ending on some very nice trills, the thing only lasts 3:23, but what a punch Debussy packs into it, a knockout in the first round!.

Here's Mouvement [the third piece of Book 1] being played on YouTube.