I could listen to this forever. When it was new, nearly 15 years ago, I described it as the strongers, most colourful, most musical and most poetic Debussy you ever heard from a pianist. I don't feel much cooler about it now, though of course Michelangeli is not the only pianist one wants to hear in this music. Objections to him, and I have occasionally come across them, derive from the small rhythmic licences he takes here and there, in both sets of pieces, and from the liberal interpretation of the tempo rubato Debussy specified for ''Reflects dans l'eau''; but for me these licences, if that's what they are, are not to be separated from the style of the performance and the alchemy. Here is a powerful musical personality taking possession of the music and projecting it on a big scale, as great concert artists do. I find no distortion, only illumination: though I do admit Children's Corner can be equally well served by the more intimate manner exemplified in Jacques Rouvier's recital on Denon.
Maybe Michelangeli does play up the contrasts a bit. But I wouldn't forego his vividness. What he provides, I think, is musical definition on the level where it becomes absurd to consider the sound as something separate from the thought, or the realitiy of the music from the piano playing. As Debussy said, analysis is doomed to futility. If you're interested in examining the nature of small miracles, though, it's instructive to study the copy of the first two pieces in the second book of Images— ''Cloches a travers les feuilles'' and ''Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut''—and to note the beauties which result from a master pianist's control of different planes of sound. This is the sort of 'technique' most people never notice. The recording is a match for the playing, with good depth, and I'm delighted to have it on Compact Disc.'