Of all the great composers
for the piano, Debussy is the most elusive
for the performer. A transcendental
technique must be taken as read, yet
the music grants few opportunities to
revel in bravura for its own
sake. Above all, it requires an extraordinary
imaginative response - from listener
as well as pianist - and an intensity
of concentration that can draw an audience
into the experience.
Louis Laloy, Debussy’s
first biographer, revealed in 1909 that
the composer received his most profitable
lessons from poets and painters, not
from musicians. Debussy himself told
Edgar Varèse in 1911 ‘I love
pictures almost as much as music’. He
met Toulouse-Lautrec, knew both Maurice
Denis and Whistler - from whom he borrowed
the title of his Nocturnes. He
probably met Gauguin, who had a ‘mania
for relating painting to music’ and
likened colours to instrumental timbres.
So any interpreter
who takes on Debussy must be able to
project these ‘visual’ qualities vividly.
This is the first time I have encountered
Russell Sherman on disc, but it seems
clear to me that he possesses all these
necessary qualities. The three Estampes
(literally ‘Engravings’) of 1903
are sharply characterised, with an especially
powerful realisation of Pagodes,
an oriental evocation by
means of the pentatonic scale. Sherman
brings out the intimidatingly alien
feeling of the music, while in Poissons
d’or (Goldfish) from the second
book of Images, he captures perfectly
the creatures’ sparkling, quixotic movements.
The same type of sensitive
response to the images of this amazing
music is there in all Sherman’s performances.
His Puerta del Viño from
Book 2 of the Preludes is a tour
de force of light and dark, of brilliance
and despair. I admit I was relieved,
in a way, to arrive at Bruyères
(‘Briars’) on track 11, for this
is the first truly relaxed work on the
disc. It is in truth a sort of companion
piece to La fille aux cheveux de
lin from Book One, and Sherman fills
it with appropriate charm and delicate
humour, while avoiding coy sentimentality.
It is said that Prelude
10, Canope, named after the ancient
Egyptian city, was inspired by the contemplation
of two ancient Canopean jar-lids that
Debussy kept on his work-desk. Certainly
this is one of his most austere and
enigmatic pieces, and once more, Sherman
finds exactly the right timing and tonal
gradation for it to make its effect.
His voicing of the parallel chords is
a joy – and this ability to sense the
perspectives in the music, to give a
graphic sense of foreground and background,
is utterly transfixing in the final
prelude Feux d’artifice (Fireworks)
too. As the display fades – or rather,
we seem to move further away
from it - there is the most fleeting
of allusions to La Marseillaise,
barely perceptible. Once more, by the
subtlety of his touch, Sherman finds
the exact poetic tone to communicate
the scene and its emotions.
The sound of the piano
is perfectly captured by the Avie technicians;
the harp-like resonance of the strings
in the softer music is so important,
and it has been recorded exceptionally
well, as have the fierce fortissimo
moments.
There are so many great
interpretations on disc of these works
– to name but a few, Thibaudet, Arrau,
and, perhaps greatest of all, Gieseking.
But Sherman can certainly hold his own
in such exalted company. On hearing
this disc, I was once again awe-struck
by the power of Debussy’s musical imagery;
no praise for a performer can be higher
than that.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Russell Sherman (piano) 
