If anything, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet surpasses the high standards he set in his previous Debussy release (7/07) with this second instalment. While Bavouzet is no slouch in the tone-colour department, his interpretations do not primarily concern themselves with sound-painting. Instead he focuses upon clarity of textures, rhythmic precision, well differentiated articulation, plus scrupulous balances between the hands and within chords. Timbral variety and tonal allure arise from these elements working together. As you listen to Bavouzet’s effortless rhythmic lilt and buoyant sense of line in the Tarentelle styrienne, Masques and “Jardins sous la pluie”, or his firm bass underpinnings and impeccably calibrated arabesques throughout L’isle joyeuse, you don’t perceive the “hammerless” piano of Debussy’s dreams. Instead, the piano’s innards morph into a finely honed chamber orchestra. Similarly in “Pagodes”, Bavouzet’s sharply profiled melodies shed welcome animated light on a piece that’s often interpreted too flaccidly.

Some might favour Alain Planes’s warmer, more curvaceous way with the Valse romantique (HM, 9/07) but Bavouzet’s shapelier urgency proves more convincing in Pour le piano’s central Sarabande, as well as its earlier incarnation in the cycle of “forgotten” Images. The recorded sound is never less than pleasing, even if it doesn’t quite match the richness and detailed immediacy of the Planes disc and Steven Osborne’s reference Debussy Preludes (Hyperion, 10/06). All told, Bavouzet’s exemplary artistry bodes well for Children’s Corner, Suite bergamasque and the mature Images to come in future volumes, along with a highly anticipated remake of the Etudes.