These performances were recorded—in front of by no means the quietest of audiences—in Paris during 1961, early days for Richter so far as Western Europe was concerned. The Haydn sonata is not the sort of music most readily associated with him now, but its three movements receive a simple, direct interpretation of real distinction, immaculately played. a much stronger effect is created by the second side of this adequately recorded LP, and the four Debussy Book 1 Preludes are performed with great individuality, the range of tone colour suddenly displayed being extraordinary.
Richter's control of the lower end of the dynamic spectrum, as in ''Des pas sur la neige'', seems as remarkable as ever it did, but each of these Debussy performances is a marvel in its own way. Note the rhythmic flexibility of ''La serenade interrompue'', and the several degrees of distinctness with which its various semiquaver figurations are articulated. There are amazing nuances in the quiet passages of ''La cathedrale engloutie'' and a wholly unrhetorical grandeur elsewhere. ''La danse de Puck'' is marked by exceptional rhythmic alacrity and a fey, elusive lightness. All is darkness, however, in Prokofiev's ''Suggestion diabolique'', whose sombre and headlong flight is conveyed with an abrupt, wholly apt virtuosity.'