Angela Hewitt was widely acclaimed for her recording of Ravel’s solo piano music a few years ago. Debussy, however, is a different proposition. She is at her best in movements such as ‘Doctor Gradus’ from Children’s Corner and the Prélude from Pour le piano, both, perhaps significantly, fingery pieces. What is less convincing is an ability to create sonorities that sound – as Debussy once said – as if the piano had no hammers. I would count among these instances ‘Clair de lune’, Children’s Corner’s ‘Little Shepherd’ and the Sarabande from Pour le piano. In the last of these, comparison with Bavouzet is illuminating. He takes it a little faster, there’s more rhetoric and the chords are beautifully balanced, giving it an understated eloquence. And, in the final Toccata, both he and Gieseking really let fly.

There’s one other aspect essential to Debussy (in a very different way from Ravel): humour. Hewitt’s Golliwog is slightly arch, while music’s third-most famous elephant (behind those of Poulenc and Saint-Saëns) is just a little ponderous. Turn to Bavouzet or Gieseking to encounter a more persuasive Jimbo.

Hewitt’s second Arabesque is an interesting case study. She observes the allegretto tempo direction rather more than its scherzando element. Others are tempted to take it somewhat faster – Trp∂eski included, so it’s not just the Frenchmen – but it’s the details that I miss: the naughty arpeggiated augmented chord (0'50") passes for little. That’s a minor point, you might think, but it’s indicative of what’s going on in general. She’s true to the letter of the score but doesn’t seem in tune
with Debussy himself. When the opening idea returns there’s little sense of a switch in mood and the passage marked meno mosso, pp armonioso (2'35"), a moment of enchantment in some hands, passes for little here. At the opposite end of the scale, Hewitt’s L’isle joyeuse lacks the Lisztian brilliance that Bavouzet produces in spades. And in the disc’s final number, the gorgous La plus que lente, Hewitt is simply lacking in Gallic insouciance. Gieseking, on the other hand, is not.