Debussy & Rameau

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He’s done it again…it is clear from the outset that this is no lazy selection of favourites…His playing never feels self-indulgent of inappropriate…There is never any doubt that this is Ólafsson’s... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2020, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 27th Mar 2020
Catalogue No: 4837701
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Length: 78 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

27th March 2020
Gramophone Magazine

April 2020

Editor's Choice
BBC Music Magazine

June 2020

Recording of the Month
Diapason d’Or

May 2020

Nouveauté
Opus Klassik Awards

2020

Winner - Solo Instrumental Recital (Piano)
Gramophone Magazine

Critics' Choice 2020
Presto Recordings of the Year

Winner 2020
The Times Records of the Year

2020

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Debussy: La damoiselle élue: Prelude

Work length3:51

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Le rappel des oiseaux

Work length2:40

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Suite in E minor: Rigaudons 1 & 2

Work length1:02

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Musette en rondeau

Work length3:13

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Tambourin

Work length0:56

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: La villageoise

Work length1:19

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Gigue en rondeau I & II

Work length3:42

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Debussy: Estampe No. 3 - Jardins sous la pluie

Work length3:55

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Excerpt, Debussy: Children's Corner

Work length4:22

$2.20

$3.00

$4.10

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

3. Serenade for the Doll

Track length1:58

$1.10

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4. The Snow Is Dancing

Track length2:24

$1.10

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Rameau: Les tendres plaintes

Work length2:36

$1.10

$1.50

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Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Pièces de Clavecin 1724: Les Tourbillons

Work length1:42

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: L'Entretien des muses

Work length2:58

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Debussy: Des pas sur le neige (from Préludes - Book 1)

Work length3:52

$1.10

$1.50

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Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: La joyeuse

Work length0:58

$1.10

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Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Les Cyclopes

Work length2:57

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: The Arts and the Hours

Work length4:45

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin (from Préludes - Book 1: No. 8)

Work length2:23

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Debussy: Ondine (from Préludes - Book 2)

Work length4:13

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: La Cupis in D minor

Work length4:11

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Excerpt, Rameau: Concert No. 4 in B flat major

Work length3:18

$2.20

$3.00

$4.10

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

2. L'indiscrète

Track length1:06

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

3. La Rameau

Track length2:12

$1.10

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Rameau: La poule

Work length2:38

$1.10

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Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: L'Enharmonique

Work length3:53

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Menuets 1 & 2

Work length2:43

$1.10

$1.50

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Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: Les Sauvages

Work length1:23

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Rameau: L'Egyptienne

Work length2:12

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Debussy: Hommage à Rameau (No. 2 from Images pour piano - Book 1)

Work length7:14

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)
Recorded: 2019-08-30
Recording Venue: Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

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Recording of the Week, Víkingur Ólafsson performs piano music by Debussy and Rameau

27th March 2020

The Icelandic pianist releases his third album on Deutsche Grammophon: an exquisitely-performed programme of music by Debussy and Rameau.

Interview, Víkingur Ólafsson on Debussy and Rameau

23rd March 2020

James talks to Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson about his latest album on Deutsche Grammophon: a fascinating pairing of music by Debussy and Jean Philippe Rameau.

Fresh from his hugely acclaimed and multi -award-winning album Johann Sebastian Bach, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s third Deutsche Grammophon recording pairs works by two revolutionary French composers separated by a century and a half: Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy.

Debussy is most often called an impressionist. “People get lost a little bit in sound for the sake of sound”, Ólafsson comments. But the composer was also “a real perfectionist... there is this incredibly refined structure at work.” Rameau, “the bad boy of the French baroque”, likewise combined a strong sense of structure with a fondness for breaking conventions: “He broke the rules and paved the way for new ideas, new creativity, new spontaneity.” What unites the two composers, Ólafsson comments, is “a kind of freedom and discipline, juxtaposed”. The album Debussy & Rameau alternates music by the two composers, creating an enthralling dialogue between them. Works are drawn from across both composers’ careers, with the Debussy selection including well-known miniatures such as La Fille aux cheveux de lin as well as the less familiar Prelude to La Damoiselle élue arranged for piano solo.

Rameau’s works are mainly drawn from his Pièces de clavecin collections of between 1724 and 1741. One of the album’s centrepieces is Ólafsson’s own Rameau arrangement The Arts and the Hours. Ólafsson’s album concludes with a piece that connects the two composers directly: Debussy’s Hommage à Rameau from Images book 1, a moving sarabande written as a tribute from one rule -breaking composer to another.

Reviews

June 2020

He’s done it again…it is clear from the outset that this is no lazy selection of favourites…His playing never feels self-indulgent of inappropriate…There is never any doubt that this is Ólafsson’s vision of Rameau and Debussy, but it is also clearly rooted in love for each and their intertwining opens the eyes and the ears, highlighting especially that, like Bach, Rameau’s music is fertile ground for pianists.

April 2020

It could have been a triumph of style over substance but, like the Bach, the programming here is truly inspired...Where else could Ólafsson end but with ‘Hommage à Rameau’ from Images, Book 1? It not only brings the two composers together but offers the perfect distillation of all that has gone before.

July 2020

Ólafsson’s touch is malleable: suggestive in the Debussy pieces and bracingly gritty for Rameau. The centrepiece of the collection is his own transcription of an interlude from Rameau’s final opera, Les Boréades, which comes over as a meditation.

27th March 2020

This may be his finest recording yet. Apart from the sheer virtuosity on display, what impresses me most is the variety of tone and touch that he applies...I've lost count of the number of times I've listened to this album over the past few weeks, and yet it hasn't forfeited an ounce of its magic. If anything it keeps revealing more secrets and depths each time.

29th March 2020

Each piece sounds a brightly polished jewel in Olafsson’s hands, his fingerwork emulating the plucked sound of the harpsichord in the Rameau, his impressionistic flourishes in Debussy Préludes complementing each other to perfection. Exhilarating.

3rd April 2020

In Olafsson’s hands these pictures and sensations, transmuted into music, radiate with lightness, elegance, and a delight in every variety of life. Key to this success is his fingering, always sensitive and crisp...Then there’s Olafsson’s programming skills...here everything flows freely, with items solely linked by the music’s spirit and whims. It’s like riding a magic carpet, and I didn’t want the journey to end.

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Debussy & Rameau

Contents

Recording of the Week, Víkingur Ólafsson performs piano music by Debussy and Rameau

Interview, Víkingur Ólafsson on Debussy and Rameau

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Debussy & Rameau

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