Walter Gieseking’s affinity for the music of Debussy is nothing less than legendary. As Gramophone magazine wrote: “Debussy and Gieseking form an inseparable union where creator and recreator become one and the same person. Had Debussy lived to hear Gieseking he would surely have marvelled at such an uncanny identification with his very spirit.” These miraculous recordings, dating from the early 1950s, continue to set a standard in the interpretation of the French master’s music.
“Gieseking achieves miraculous tonal shadings and half-tints that fully subscribe to Debussy’s concept of a piano without hammers.”
⦁ Classics Today
“Its range of resplendent expressivity extracted from Gieseking a rare state of inspiration, the kind that depersonalizes an artist and enables his auditors to catch glimpses of eternity.”
⦁ ClassicalNet
“Gieseking is perhaps unmatched for the sensitivity and subtlety with which his performances tap into the nebulous and often hypnotic atmospheres of this groundbreaking music. Essential to any collection.”
⦁ Readings.com.au
“Here is that peerless palette of colour and texture, of a light and shade used with a nonchalantly deployed but precise expertise to illuminate every facet of Debussy’s teeming and insinuating imagination.”
Gramophone
