Perhaps no two people will exactly agree about what 'impressionist' means, in music: but surely all should fully agree that the period produced in France some fascinating piano-writing.
If nevertheless needing conviction on this point, take this record. Not quite all the music is descriptive; but the best sonorities of the piano still manage to display themselves. The full realization of those sonorities of course demands a proper pianist: Cristina Ortiz is one such, caressing, cajoling, charismatic. She is also, on quite frequent occasions, rather speedy. The very beginning, for example; do you think Debussy's first Arabesque should open in quite so lively (agitated, almost) fasion as this? But the query by no means always arises, and the brilliant pieces (many) are certainly given an extra unscheduled shine here and there. He will be hard-hearted who regularly fails to respond.
Debussy (again) might, however, have responded not quite as intended to La cathedrale engloutie, because Ortiz plays the music exactly as he wrote it. What! can this be a crime against the composer? Well no, it cannot very well be; for if that process misrepresents the music the composer has aked for it, in both senses. But I believe that in this particular piece the manuscript Debussy wrote was notated wrongly; that while the relative note values of course spell out the right rhythm, the pulse of that rhythm during the course of the Prelude should double, and halve, and double again, and halve again, all during the course of a five or six-minute piece. Why on earth should I (and others) believe such an extraordinary thing?
Well, on the margin because it produces a piece which arguably hangs together better; but principally because it is how Debussy played it himself. Surviving friends have attested it; and, above all, so does a Welte-Mignon piano roll he made of the Prelude. In reviewing a different performance of Cathedrale engloutie in March (page 1299) DJF asked for further information about this; and many others must then have had their curiosity aroused. Though DJF has answered his own queries (May, page 1509) it seems reasonable, thus, to think that precise details of the piano roll might fill a need: so here they are.
Debussy starts quite normally, continuing thus for 6 bars; on the downbeat of bar 7 he doubles the pulse for the next 7 bars, halving it back to the original on the downbeat of bar 13; correspondingly he doubles the pulse on the downbeat of bar 22, restoring the original on the downbeat of bar 85. The queries about 8va bassa and coll'8va bassa are easily resolved: Debussy plays exactly what he writes (in the original Durand edition) which is 8va bassa (only) in both passages. The notion of coll'8va bassa (doubled in octaves) is a non-starter, anyway in the moving quaver passage.
I hope some readers, at least, will not begrudge the space given to this information, which is relevant to performances of the piece in general, rather than specifically to that of Cristina Ortiz. She is in fact a far better pianist than Debussy ever was, and gives a performance in which it is indeed possible to take very great pleasure. Throughout her disc the recording is excellent; and so is the booklet's information. And, as I wrote initially, the piano sound conjured up by composer, performer, and recording engineers in combined operation, is here of the very first class.'