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ATMA Classique’s Images Retrouvées is the second issue in the Images Oubliées project by cellist Stéphane Tétrault and pianist Olivier Hébert-Bouchard that focuses on the genius of Claude Debussy (atmaclassique.com/en).
The performers cite Debussy’s interest in transcription – creating piano reductions of his own orchestral works and entrusting the orchestration of his piano works to colleagues – as the spur for their desire to create and reinvent; their arrangements for cello and piano of pieces predominantly for piano solo, give the music a new range of tone colours.
The 15 tracks are arranged chronologically, and include Deux arabesques, D’un cahier d’esquisses, L’isle joyeuse and Golliwog’s Cakewalk. Tétrault plays with a warm, even tone across the cello’s entire range, sensitively accompanied by Hébert-Bouchard in a recital of few dynamic peaks. In truth, it’s much of a muchness, but when the “muchness” is presented so beautifully, who can object?
Claude Debussy : Images retrouvées