Ralf Oehlmann:

>Besides Giesekings set of Debussys complete piano music (is it well
>remastered?) I noticed two acclaimed sets by Jean Boguet (Tudor, $25!)
>and Fergus-Thompson (ASV).  Ive never heard Boguet or Fergus-Thompson.
>Are their sets really able to compete?

Well, as good a time as any to say that since my last Debussy piano
monologue I've greatly changed my opinion on Werner Haas' 4-disc (on
two Philips Duo sets) traversal recorded in the 60's.  This is now my
top recommendation for a post-Gieseking complete set.  The sound is
a bit unusual-- I'm almost starting to think Haas recorded it on a
late-19th/early-20th century piano like the period-piano Debussy players
are doing now, it just sounds smaller and more delicate-- I had to learn to
mess with the EQ a little bit before the beauty of the thing really dawned
on me.  Haas was a pupil of Gieseking (virtually the only biographical fact
I have found on him) and like Gieseking his tempos are more brisk than we
encounter today with the more languid conceptions of Kocsis, Jacobs,
Moravec, etc...  for instance Haas' Preludes fit onto one disc and there's
still room for L'Isle Joyeuse at the end.  Brisk, exciting, and technically
dazzling, but certainly not mechanical.  Still, Haas' poetry is of a more
casual sort than that of players like Kocsis, Uchida, Moravec, Zimerman,
with whom the feeling is more of a PRESENTATION, brilliantly and thoroughly
thought out.  I have to have both types at my disposal...  but Haas is now
my favorite of the let-the-music-speak-for-itself-school and probably my
favorite complete set.  Plus the fourth disc contains all of the music for
two pianos.  I haven't heard Boguet (who is selling it for $25?), and
Fergus-Thompson I have only sampled online, but he didn't impress me,
and his reviews cited a tendency to apply too much over-deliberate rubato
and to generally lollygag about the place.  Martin Jones is a better bet
interpretively and comes cheap in one of those Nimbus bargain boxes.  No
two-piano music included but you do get the solo piano version of La Boite
A Joujoux which is nice.  "Nimbus Piano Sound", though, which not everyone
can deal with.  As to the remastering on the Gieseking set, I think EMI
could've done better.  I have a hard time believing that 1953-54 sessions
can't be made to sound better than this.  I absolutely adore his playing
but sometimes the sound drives me up the wall, and I'm not a big sound guy.
Perhaps it's similar to the Schnabel issue of which I have read, where
EMI's transfers tried to remove as much of the noise as possible but robbed
the piano of its luster, whereas Pearl's transfers left in more of the
noise but sound more alive.  And with Debussy you've gotta have those
overtones!!  When I listen to the Gieseking set I just want to yank the
piano about twenty feet closer to me-- it sounds like it's in the next
room.  But the playing is divine.  Right now I say Werner Haas-- he's got
the goods.  Martino Tirimo's four discs on Carlton are going for next to
nothing at Berkshire right now so I'm going to check those out-- I'll let
you know how they are.

Jon Lewis
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