Proms Chamber Music 8 (3.9.12): Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays Debussy

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Monday 3 September
1.00 p.m. – c.2.00 p.m.
Cadogan Hall

Debussy: Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (3 mins)
Debussy: Élégie (2 mins)
Debussy: Masques (5 mins)
Debussy: Préludes – Book 2 (38 mins)

Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano

French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs music by compatriot Claude Debussy in the year of the 150th anniversary of his birth.

A meticulous interpreter and a brilliant technician, Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a familiar face at the Proms and in this final Proms Chamber Music of the season, he turns his attention to the revolutionary piano works of Debussy. At the core of the programme is Debussy's Second Book of Preludes - short evocations, improvisatory in character and free in form - they are in Aimard's words "wonderful labyrinths in sound", and there is possibly no better guide through the labyrinth than Aimard.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

My piano teacher at university always pushed me towards Debussy, a composer I appreciated, but always preferred Ravel as a piano composer. Any thoughts?

Book 2 of the Preludes? Now that's worth hearing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My piano teacher at university always pushed me towards Debussy, a composer I appreciated, but always preferred Ravel as a piano composer. Any thoughts?

They complement each other so well; it's like Bach and Handel in that respect - two great but completely different composers, both producing Music that lesser composers would give their right arms and left legs to match. Debussy is more to my tastes most days - listening is like trying to touch mercury; just when I think I've "got" it, it slithers out of the way and defies me to try again! Ravel is often more outgoing - but so often his "easier" Music is just a front behind which machinery quite as intricate as Debussy's is whirring away.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm just waiting on a friend to phone and say he's got tickets, after last week's nightmare! If he doesn't get back at 12 I'll be listening on the radio.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hmmm. Listening to this at home, am I missing something?

Debussy is all about nuance, mischief, vivacity and shadow. There is an infinitude of ways to interpret Debussy; to me however this performance all seems somewhat flat, laboured and lacking in contrasts.