According to the biographical note Minoru Nojima's career is centred on America and his native Japan rather than on Europe—which to judge by this Ravel recording is Europe's loss. Throughout Miroirs he displays a sensitivity to shading and colour of which any French musician would be proud (and which not a few would surely envy). ''Alborada del gracioso'' crackles and sizzles as idiomatically and with as little compromise for the treacherous repeated notes as any recorded version since the legendary Lipatti (EMI (CD) CDH7 63038-2, 11/89), and ''Une barque sur l'ocean'' is an extraordinary evocation, the ocean more threatening and with a stronger swell than in any performance I can remember, and all realized with total control and artistic conviction. Nojima's Gaspard joins the select few which combine real virtuosity with real atmosphere and menace. Beckmesser's slate reveals that the accompaniment figuration in ''Ondine'' is too loud, and that not all Ravel's melodic lines stand in ideal relief, or that when they do in the later stages of ''Scarbo'' it is by the dubious virtue of overprojection; ''Le gibet'' is a fraction too analytical and too sharply inflected and too many chords on its last page are not ideally synchronized. But I am sure piano buffs will want to have this in their collection and will derive great pleasure from it.
Nor have we necessarily heard the very best of Nojima. The acoustic is distinctly on the dry side, with not a little background hiss (why are so many DDD recordings thus afflicted?) and the instrument is a shade too close for comfort. Nor am I convinced that the piano is of the very finest. All this is highlighted by comparison with Chandos's recording of Louis Lortie, who happens to play even more magically and even more scrupulously, at least in my book (CH was less thrilled, though he did allow that not everyone would share his reservations). For me Lortie stands currently unchallenged in this repertoire. There have been more overwhelming Gaspards—Ashkenazy's on Decca, Pogorelich's on DG, for instance—but none more beautifully textured or more idiomatic (there is a nasty curdled languor to ''Le gibet'' and a slightly distanced quality to ''Scarbo'' which I find wholly appropriate). Nojima is just a touch realistic by comparison, and he offers short measure beside the 74 minutes of Lortie. Still he comfortably surpasses the thoughtful and well-recorded Crossley (CRD), the fluent and not so well-recorded Roge (mid-price Decca) and the anxious and poorly recorded Perlemuter (Nimbus).'