Were you to hear for the first time Debussy’s 12 Preludes, Book 1, in the hands of Michael Korstick you would count yourself lucky. Here, you would think, is everything the music calls for: atmosphere, tonal colouring, acute observation of the score, subtle characterisation and, not least, a beautiful recorded sound. It is only when you turn to someone like the Gramophone Award-winning Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (Chandos, 7/07) that you hear other things that are not necessarily in the score. Certainly he can ‘do’ murmuré, quasi guitarra, dans une brume and other Debussian requests better than most but he also makes you smile in the process. His are the Preludes with Gallic charm.

Debussy’s last known piano piece, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur de charbon (‘Evenings lit up by glowing coals’) was also recorded by Bavouzet for his Chandos cycle, as was Khamma, his ‘curious ballet with its trumpet-calls which savour of revolt and fire and send a shiver down your back’ (Debussy’s description) – except that Bavouzet plays a ‘lighly edited’ version of the score, while Korstick adopts the piece as ‘notated by Debussy in a sort of two-piano version’ (Korstick), only playable by double-tracking himself for eight bars between 17'28" and 17'51". Hänssler, incidentally, offers a useful summary of the ballet’s libretto against the time-code of Korstick’s recording.

That is not all. We have Intermède, among Debussy’s earliest compositions, though not a first recording as claimed, Toomai des éléphants (completed by Robert Orledge, who also contributes the exemplary booklet), originally destined to be the 11th Prelude of Book 2, and Petite valse of c1915, the manuscript of which surfaced as recently as 2004. The last two are world-premiere recordings. Altogether an auspicious start to the cycle.