If asked to encapsulate Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s highly anticipated Debussy Préludes in two words or less, I’d say “con amore”. Given the stunning excellence of his solo Ravel and Liszt releases on MDG, it’s no surprise that Bavouzet commands all the shading, nuance and timbral sensitivity one expects in Debussy, together with virtuoso flair and characterful spontaneity that adds welcome backbone to the composer’s “hammerless” aesthetic.

Notice, for example, how marvellously Bavouzet points up the embellishments and whimsical rhythms in “Les collines d’Anacapri”, “Minstrels” and “Général Lavine – eccentric”, or the lilting lyrical inflections he brings to “La fille aux cheveux de lin” and “Bruyères”. “La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune” is richly resonant and atmospheric, and so is Bavouzet’s fluent, long-lined treatment of “La cathédrale engloutie”, where he adopts the unmarked yet implied tempo changes Debussy made in his 1913 Welte-Mignon piano-roll recording. More controversially, perhaps, Bavouzet is not averse to rolling chords not meant to be arpeggiated (his meticulously voiced “Danseuses de Delphes” and impassioned “Les sons et les parfums”), while even a few Paderewski-style left-hand anticipations sneak through the cracks (the opening section of “Canope”).

Inevitably Bavouzet must contend with his chief competitor among single-disc versions, Steven Osborne (Hyperion, 10/06), whose fastidious attention to details of dynamics, tempi and articulation, yields a vivid, revelatory and standard-setting expressive portfolio. At the same time, Bavouzet’s generally swift timings allow for an interesting encore, the recently discovered “Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon”. Chandos provides excellent sound and scholarly, informative notes by Roger Nichols.