Debussy - Debussy: Piano Music Vol.5

Pianist Noriko Ogawa has won critical acclaim for earlier volumes of this Debussy piano music cycle, with her interpretations of the composer's sets of Images and of etudes singled out as belonging to the finest in the discography. On this the fifth and final disc, Noriko Ogawa again offers us scintillating performances of works both well-known and less often heard. The two Arabesques were among Debussy's most popular works already during his lifetime, with hundreds of thousand of copies sold before his death. Another 'hit' was Reverie, which Debussy himself wanted to suppress, but which at one stage even ended up as No. 1 on the US Billboard chart in a swing arrangement. Less familiar are some of the youthful works, for instance Danse bohemienne, Debussy's first piano piece composed at the age of 18. But the two main works on the disc are indisputably the suites Pour le Piano and Suite Bergamasque, which Debussy completed in his maturity. 'A Debussy interpreter of exceptional class.' International Record Review