IMAGES ET MIRAGES: HOMMAGE À DEBUSSY • Sandro Russo (pn) • STEINWAY AND SONS 30105 (70:35)

DEBUSSY Reflects dans l’eau. Hommage à Rameau. Mouvement. Cloches à travers les feuilles. Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut. Poissons d’or. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arr. Borwick). Fêtes (arr. Leyetchkiss). Lindaraja (arr. Roger-Ducasse). Three Songs SCHMITT A la mémoire de Claude Debussy DUKAS La plainte, au loin, du faun... DE FALLA Hommage à Debussy

In 1920, two years after the death of Debussy, the new French based musical publication Le Revue Musicale organized a tribute to the great man, and commissioned ten composers to craft short works to honor his memory. This tombeau de Debussy featured new music by several of the major figures of the day, including Stravinsky, Bartok and Ravel. In this beguiling recital, the young Italian pianist Sandro Russo interweaves three other contributors, no small players themselves – Florent Schmitt, Paul Dukas and Manuel DeFalla – into a generous selection of Debussy’s music, including six of the Images, plus a handful of unusual transcriptions.

The first thing to say about this thoughtful collection is that Sandro Russo is a wonderful Debussy interpreter. His splendid technique includes masterful manipulation of tonal color within tautly constructed phrases. His pacing is deliberate, as opposed to histrionically dreamy. His selections from the two books of Image are on par with the massive competition, and he also offers several novel transcriptions. The ebullient arrangement of Fêtes is especially effective as a solo piano vehicle, while the overexposed (but undeniably beautiful) Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune loses emotional depth sans the sonorous qualities of the orchestral version. Songs transcribed for piano, too, invariably seem diminished compared to the original vocalizations (Liszt’s grandiloquent transcriptions of Schubert songs are exceptions). Russo plays them with endearing reverence, nevertheless.

Of the three tombeau de Debussy composers, Schmitt hews closest to Debussy’s esthetic world, with a kind of enhanced impressionism, while Dukas, sounding nothing like the high-spirited composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, offers a dark re-interpretation of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. De Falla presents the most interesting homage, incorporating Debussy harmonies into a sultry dance inflected with Iberian rhythms. This is more than fitting, given Debussy’s interest in Spanish musical traditions, as heard here in Lindaraja, originally written as a four hand piano work. In all, this is an intriguing and enjoyable recital.

– Peter Burwasser

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