Russell Sherman’s programme (the start of a complete Debussy cycle?) reminds you in a salutary if unintentional way that although Debussy’s scores do not appear radically different they are marked with a meticulous, typically Gallic precision. Ignore the composer at your peril, and remember his tireless complaint that pianists disregarded his larger, let alone his smaller, pinpoint directions.

Such thoughts came to mind as I listened to Sherman’s free and easy view of the score; liberating in one sense but confusing in another. Reacting strongly to what he sees as dry academicism or literalism, he is rhapsodic to a fault. Out of a finer control and discipline surely comes a finer and ultimate distillation of Debussy’s poetic and revolutionary genius. Why the sudden lurch at the start of “Bruyères”, destroying all sense of an idyllic poise and calm; why the constant desynchronisation of the hands in “La soirée dans Grenade”; why so reckless and unfocused in “Jardins sous la pluie”? The list continues, leaving the listener enervated and longing for greater musical focus and rigour.

Sherman has written his own notes in his familiar mandarin prose. Of “Brouillards” he writes: “Stillness leaves no footprint. Anonymity shrivels to anomie, as the departing souls join columns laboring under the false illusions of redemption.” Such comments, like the performances, are subjective to the point of obscurity. Meanwhile, Avie’s presentation is lavish and their sound captures ideally Sherman’s misty-eyed view of his beloved composer.