The name of Theodore Paraskivesco is new to me. A Romanian, born in 1940, he was a pupil of Yvonne Lefebure and Nadia Boulanger, won the Prix Debussy in 1971 and it is clear from this collection that he is a performer with some insight into Debussy's idiom, for example its texture and phrasing. The analogue recording is by no means new, dating from 1976, but it has been digitally remastered and sounds well. However, I do have some reservations about the playing. The collection begins with the first book of Preludes, and here the pianist all too often seems in a hurry. After listening once to these, I noted that he is faster than Nagai and Michelangeli (DG) in every one of these 12 pieces and faster than Rouvier (Denon) in all save the first. In fact his overall timing for Book 1 is under 36 minutes compared with Michelangeli's 43'50'' and Nagai's 4416''. Of course there is more to a judgement of tempo than using a readout or stop watch, but I only looked at these timings after feeling a sense of haste in at least five Preludes, namely ''Le vent dans la plaine'', ''Les sons et les parfums tournent dans I'air du soir'', ''La fille aux cheveux de lin'', ''La serenade interrompue'' (which is marked ''moderately animated'') and, above all, ''La cathedrale engloutie'' which the composer asks to be ''profoundly calm''—Nagai takes 2'25'' longer on this piece. On the other hand, Paraskivesco's tendency to urgency works very well in ''Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest''. It had better be mentioned, though, that he omits half a bar of the first page of ''Les collines d'Anacapri''.
Nagai's digital recording of the first books of Preludes and Images has an attractive tonal bloom that often suits this music and reminded me at times of Richter's live LP recording of Book 2 (Turnabout—nla), but this can detract from brilliance, say in ''Les collines d'Anacapri''. I hear a very faint background and some breathing too but not enough to be serious. Nagai is a thoughtful Debussy pianist who obviously feels the more intense music deeply and she is compelling in such pieces as ''Des pas sur la neige'' and ''La cathedrale engloutie''. But elsewhere one sometimes looks for a more relaxed approach: for example ''La fille aux cheveux de lin'' could be more tenderly flexible, and ''La serenade interrompue''. ''La danse de Puck'' and ''Minstrels'' all need more humour and lightness. In the Images, a sonorous ''Reflets dans l'eau'' is followed by sensitive performances of the other two pieces: predictably the spacious ''Hommage a Rameau'' is taken pretty slowly. But both she and Paraskivesco face strong competition in Book 1 of the Preludes. Michelangeli's celebrated analogue recording of 1978 has startlingly immediate piano sound and the playing is compelling, though so individual as perhaps to be mannered at times (the rhythm in ''Des pas sur la neige'' is peculiar to say the least and ''La danse de Puck'' is oddly heavy) and I personally would like more interpretative half-tones—suggestion rather than statement—for example in ''La fille aux cheveux de lin''. Rouvier is less striking but generally satisfying: quietly sensitive and getting most of the music well in focus—though here too I wish the pianist would play the ostinato rhythm in ''Des pas sur la neige'' as Debussy wrote it and Shakespeare's Puck is anything but leger. He is well recorded, though ideally the sound could have still more ambience and this CD is short at 39'21''.
To return to Paraskivesco, his four discs, unavailable separately, may suggest a complete set of Debussy's solo piano music. But this it is not, and the compilation seems odd and somewhat unsatisfactory. For while we have no Masques, nor a number of other things such as the 1894 'pre-Images' or D'un cahier d'esquisses, we do have the Six epigraphes antiques for piano duet and Ravel's Ma mere l'oye and Habanera for the same combination—why not Debussy's Petite Suite? I understand that the pianist is joined by Jacques Rouvier in the duets, but can find no mention of him in the printed material accompanying the issue. Space forbids a detailed discussion of all his playing, but broadly speaking it is often satisfying and sometimes more than that—the two Arabesques, for example, are charming and so is L'isle joyeuse—and never less than serviceable. But there are several apparent misreadings, small but clearly perceptible. In Book 2 of the Preludes (which doesn't hurry as Book 1 sometimes does) I notice a wrong right-hand chord in ''La puerta del vino'' an incorrect rhythm in ''Les fees sont d'exquises danseuses'', and another wrong note in bar 6 of ''La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune''. This is a pity, as are misread chords in ''Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut'' in Book 2 of the Images and La plus que lente, and the missing melodic right-hand octave in ''La soiree dans Grenade'' (Estampes) and the wrong one in the Nocturne. In the Etudes there is an extra beat of lefthand figuration in No. 1, a missing left-hand chord in No. 3, wrong rhythms in No. 4 and No. 8, a wrong note in No. 5, a strange left-hand error in No. 7, an extra right-hand note and then one missing in No. 9; and in Children's Corner it does not sound as if the soft pedal is used throughout the ''Serenade for a doll'' as the composer wanted.
But enough of fault-finding, despite all this it's only fair to say that at not far short of five hours in all this set offers much fine music often stylishly played and in good sound.'