Debussy: Douze Etudes - Mitsuko Uchida (1990) torrent

Gramophone [8/1999]:
"Uchida's Gramophone Award-winning Debussy Etudes, rapturously acclaimed by DJF and others in these pages, hardly need a further plug from me. Hers is nerve-end playing of surpassing fantasy and refinement, minutely responsive to texture and colour. Listen, for instance, to the canto dolce marcato in ‘Pour les tierces', etched with infinite delicacy (from 1'37''), or the torrent of sound she conjures in the closing bars; to the shimmering calm of the dolce e sostenuto opening of ‘Pour les sixtes'; the gossamer lightness of the following ‘Pour les huit doigts'; the airborne, scherzando grace – and freedom from the bar-line – of ‘Pour les notes repetees'; and the combination of incisiveness and elasticity in the final ‘Pour les accords'. Uchida's virtuosity and elan are stunning, her tonal shading, especially in the softer dynamics, verging on the miraculous. As DJF remarked in his original review, these are readings that expand notions of Debussian style. The recording is exemplary in its clarity and warmth." --Richard Wigmore (from the review of Great Pianists of the 20th Century - Mitsuko Uchida)

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Douze Études pour le Piano
(Philips: 50 Great Recordings)

Livre I
01. I. pour les "cinq doigts" d'après Monsieur Czerny [2.51]
02. II. pour les Tierces [3.35]
03. III. pour les Quartes [5.31]
04. IV. pour les Sixtes [4.15]
05. V. pour les Octaves [3.08]
06. VI. pour les huit doigts [1.26]
Livre II
07. VII. pour les Degrés chromatiques [2.06]
08. VIII. pour les Agréments [4.55]
09. IX. pour les Notes répétées [3.18]
10. X. pour les Sonorités opposées [5.15]
11. XI. pour les Arpèges composés [ 4.48]
12. XII. pour les Accords [5.08]

Mitsuko Uchida, piano

Recording location: England, April 1989
Producer: Wilhelm Hellweg
Balance engineers: Wilhelm Hellweg, Onno Scholtze
Recording engineer: Onno Scholtze
Recording editor: Jan Wesselink
® 1990 Philips Classics, a division of the Decca Music Group Limited
© 2001 Philips Classics
Philips 464 698-2