If you’re familiar with the first four volumes of Noriko Ogawa’s Debussy cycle, Vol 5 will not surprise you. In shorter pieces, Ogawa’s way with the composer remains gentle, easy-going, soft-grained and perhaps too careful. Compare, for example, her gracious, rounded accounts of the Ballade, Mazurka, Valse romantique, the two Arabesques, the Sarabande from Pour le piano and Passepied from Suite bergamasque with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s more pronounced rhythmic verve, textural variety and dynamism (Chandos).

In other words, he paints in bold, primary colours, whereas Ogawa favours pastels. So did Gieseking but his Debussy had more shape and backbone. By contrast, in Ogawa’s flaccid hands, Rêverie’s tapered phrases and amorphous pulse render the piece’s “dreamy” subtext virtually comatose. Harsh observations, but only because Ogawa is thoroughly capable of rising to the occasion; notice the verve and point she brings to the opening Préludes of the Suite bergamasque and Pour le piano suites. BIS’s mellow resonance falls as easily on the ear as Ogawa’s agreeable yet inconsistently inspired pianism. Je