Great Pianists of the 20th Century, Vol. 33: Walter Gieseking II

Born in France to German parents in 1895, Walter Gieseking grew up in the south of France and retained a lifelong affinity for the music of Debussy and Ravel. He had a stupendous technique and perhaps the keenest understanding of sonority of any pianist ever: he was unrivalled in the use of the pedals and his ability to convey a full tone in the softest dynamics. All this made him an ideal interpreter of the music of Debussy, whose two books of preludes and Estampes are the main offering here. Gieseking explored Debussy's sound-world as thoroughly as anyone has ever done, with flamboyance and a pianistic naturalness that seems to have been lost to subsequent generations. In these wonderfully evocative and organic readings from 1936-39, he produces a truly fantastic tissue of sound that fully justifies Debussy's admonition that his music should be played "as though the piano had no hammers."

Gieseking's rendition of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, recorded in 1937 and 1938, is equally striking and astute. His Mozart suffers a bit from the kind of music-box treatment that was typical of the time, and from articulation that's a bit slapdash. His Beethoven, by contrast, is intensely focused and dazzling. --Ted Libbey