The Debussy piano music situation continues to be one of tight-throat
competition and considerable confusion for the buyer. Confusion
because the plethora of possible couplings means that anybody
who thinks to get a rounded view by dividing his Debussy
between several pianists will end up with plentiful duplications
and equally plentiful gaps. Monique Haas (only available
as a boxed set,
see
review), Austbø (see
review
of vol. 3) and Thiollier (see
review
of vol. 1) have at least agreed in showing that all
Debussy’s early pieces, up to “Pour le Piano”, will go
neatly on one disc. Pascal Rogé’s new cycle is spreading
the odds and ends around (see, for example,
review
of vol. 2). Bavouzet has a half-in-half solution. His
third volume has the major work of the earliest period – the “Suite
Bergamasque” – along with a fair number of the other shorter
pieces contemporary with it. The remaining early pieces
plus “Pour le piano” appeared in his second volume (
see
review). He then plays the major work from the period
between the “Images” and the “Préludes” – “Children’s Corner” – followed
by some of the single pieces written by Debussy from then
to the end of his life. Others of these pieces were included
in the second volume. In terms of listener-friendliness
he has a point. Not all the juvenilia are especially interesting
and a whole disc of them rather emphasizes the fact.
I have already expressed the view that of recent cycles and
those currently under way, Bavouzet’s and Noriko Ogawa’s – on
BIS – strike me as the most important. While I am sure
this is not intended, the order in which the volumes are
coming out has made full comparison difficult. We still
await the early pieces from Ogawa – though she has already
picked up an early “Intermède” that has escaped everybody
else – while her “Etudes” (vol. 4, which I hope to review
shortly) have come out ahead of Bavouzet’s (recently announced
for issue). We do have her versions of the pieces on the
present CD from “Children’s Corner” onwards (vol. 2
- see
review), though
at first sight it may not seem so: a few of the recent
discoveries appear under different names. But even when
the cycles are finished, the two will not be comparable.
Bavouzet’s four volumes will include all the original solo
piano music. Ogawa has four volumes already and has covered “La
Boîte à joujoux”, a ballet which Debussy left in piano
score and never got round to orchestrating himself, and
the solo-piano version of the “Six épigraphes antiques”,
originally for piano duet. Thiollier has conveniently grouped
these together on a cheap Naxos disc (see
review
of vol. 2), but Ogawa’s “Boîte” (see
review
of vol. 3) is really great pianism and was a revelation
to me, while Thiollier is merely good. I haven’t heard
Ogawa’s “Epigraphes” yet. So how does Bavouzet’s new volume
add to the evolving situation?
Some high claims for Bavouzet have been advanced, suggesting
his may the definitive cycle for our times. I admired his first
two volumes without going quite that far (see reviews of
vol.
1 &
vol.
2). In the opening “Nocturne” here
I queried his fussy pedal effect at the beginning and was
quickly reminded that he has rather a habit of playing
with his hands not quite together. Some of the rubato seemed
to me excessive. But I did admire his ravishing textures
and dynamic gradings. Looking around at the alternatives
I found Monique Haas spelling out the music a little too
deliberately, Thiollier dividing it up into two-bar units
with his rubato, Austbø offering rubato similar to Bavouzet’s
but with drier textures. So out of these four Bavouzet
has to be the choice.
Much the same is to be said of the “Suite Bergamasque”. There’s a
half-missing note in the first bar that ought to have been
remade, but otherwise he illuminates the harmonic changes
in the “Prélude” more naturally than the others. Austbø’s
slightly faster, more chaste “Clair de lune” could be my
ideal, not that Bavouzet is exactly steamy, but Bavouzet’s
closing “Passepied” clinches it. I was recently praising
Haas for her steady tempo here, a genuine “Allegretto ma
non troppo”, and I should insist that all these comparative
versions have been fully enjoyed in the context of the
cycles or discs from which they come. However, “Allegretto” – meaning “a
little Allegro” – is a mood as much as it is a tempo and
I find Bavouzet’s gently tripping interpretation delightful
and not at all hurried. By its side Haas seems didactic
and the others nearer to Haas than to Bavouzet. Only Klara
Kormendi, on a deleted Naxos disc (8.550252), has a tempo
similar to Bavouzet’s but she makes it sound like a brittle
toccata – her disc has some sensitive things elsewhere,
I should say out of fairness.
But Bavouzet doesn’t have it all his own way. In the “Rêverie” his
left-hand sounds like an accompaniment, albeit a ravishing
one, while Haas gives it a life of its own, elevating the
music by giving it a contrapuntal value it theoretically
doesn’t have. In the “Mazurka” Bavouzet – and most others – fiddles
around too much, losing the dance. This is expendable Debussy,
but Haas with her unfussy rhythms makes the best of it.
From “Children’s Corner” the Ogawa comparisons begin. Bavouzet is
very fluent in “Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum” – though the
very opening is not quite clear and might have been remade.
Ogawa is more imaginative, presenting the opening like
a real exercise and then providing a much more detailed
response to Debussy’s various marking. More than anyone
since Gieseking, she plays the first bars of “Jimbo’s Lullaby” “
un
peu gauche”, as Debussy asks, rather like a child
picking out the tune on the keyboard. She is also a tad
more bright-eyed in the “Serenade for the Doll”, where
Bavouzet risks sounding too smart. Bavouzet’s treatment
of the opening bar of “The Snow is Dancing” as a tempo-less
recitative would surely be unacceptable in any context
and what follows, as in “Doctor Gradus”, is just sufficiently
fast to sound superficial. Ogawa’s snowflakes fall with
a gentle evenness while her long notes toll through the
texture to suggest a wonder-struck child gazing out of
the window at the scene outside. Honours are even, I think,
in “The little Shepherd”, while Bavouzet’s smoochy “Golliwogg’s
cake walk” gets my vote – Ogawa fiddles around too much
with the central section. Best of all is Haas, whose jaunty
rhythms take on a life of their own and who shows that
the Wagner quotations in the middle can sound quite funny
enough just by playing what is written.
Haas is at her remarkable best all through “Children’s Corner”. It
should be clear by now that each artist has his or her
particular agenda. Since the music itself is greater than
any one of them can play it, it follows that each of them
reveals particular aspects of it supremely well, falling
short in others. Haas’s agenda is to play the pieces for
their inherently musical values, and let them be evocative
if they will. Bavouzet delights in pianistic colours. He
produces ravishing effects in the early salon pieces but
proves slightly reductive in “Children’s Corner”. Ogawa
excels in the pieces inspired by childhood, yet also hones
in on the more modernistic aspects. How this will suit
the earlier works we do not know as yet.
In “Hommage à Haydn”, Ogawa makes more of the staccato accompaniment
to the opening section, suggesting a Satie “Gymnopèdie”.
Bavouzet may be preferable in the faster sections. Ogawa
finds just that little bit more variety in the “Morceau
de Concours” (called “Pièce pour Piano” on her disc). She
is very slow in “La plus que lente” but is nevertheless
better at maintaining the impression of an intimate waltz – Bavouzet’s
rubato loses this at times. Something odd happens in Bavouzet’s “The
little Nigar”: the piece is short enough, yet one of its
three pages is missing. Assuming this is not a deliberate
cut by Bavouzet, it could be an editing mistake. Alternatively,
since Roger Nichols’s notes tell us that the piece was
originally one of forty by various composers published
as part of a “
Méthode élémentaire de Piano” by Théodore
Lack, maybe Bavouzet is following this original publication.
In which case the additional page, which simply repeats
page two, would have been added – presumably with Debussy’s
approval – to pad the piece out when it was issued separately.
But even if this is so – couldn’t we have been told? – I
feel that going back to the original is a pointless exercise:
with such a tiny piece the extra thirty seconds would hurt
nobody. The performances are about equal, with both artists
pulling the secondary theme around more than I like.
In the remaining pieces I found Ogawa marginally more involving in
her emphasis on their modernity rather than an impressionistic
wash. But tomorrow I might feel the other way. They are
both among the finest I’ve heard.
Altogether, I find this the best of Bavouzet’s three volumes so far.
Further confirmation that his and Ogawa’s are two of the
most significant cycles-in-progress.
Christopher Howell
see also review by Dan Morgan
Jean-Efflam
Bavouzet (piano) 
