<<  -- 3 --  Robert Anderson    PLAYFUL AND CAPRICIOUS

I have concentrated on Debussy's earliest keyboard music, not only in gratitude for Roy Howat's skilful presentation of it to us, but also because Debussy is at his most fresh and beguiling. The later music may be more characteristic of the mature composer, but here is both innocence and the charm of discovery. Roy Howat has made this music very much his own, and has rightly earned golden opinions with his performances. If now and again I am reminded of Alfred Cortot and his reiterated comment to any pianist coming before him at a Siena masterclass I attended, it is a remark that invariably occurs to me at some moment in every such recital: 'più piano, please'.

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