Debussy: Preludes, Books 1 & 2

Gieseking was an extraordinary stylist and perhaps the century's greatest sonorist. His interpretations of Debussy were justly celebrated. Unhappily, the technology EMI possessed at the time these renditions of the Preludes were captured, in 1953 and 1954, does only marginal justice to him. At least the recordings were made in a reverberent acoustic well suited to the music, and the tone that comes through, while thin at the top, is solid. --Ted Libbey