Once the least-performed of all Debussy’s cyclical works, the Etudes have steadily gained popularity in concert and on disc. As a result, each new version invariably faces more catalog competition. François-Joel Thiollier’s soft-grained virtuosity taps into the music’s alluring sonorities and harmonic beauty, bringing out plenty of color with no more aid from the sustain pedal than necessary. As a technician, Thiollier doesn’t offer the bedrock security that typifies Pollini’s double notes, Uchida’s firmly centered rhythm, or Gieseking’s utterly even fingers in Pour Les Huits Doigts. Yet while his timid chord-to-octave leaps in the daunting 12th etude slow down when the going gets tough, Thiollier compensates with as sexy and curvaceous a middle section as you’ll ever hear. He also plays the three-against-two rhythm during the opening etude’s introduction as written, rather than slightly rushing the right hand triplet as nearly everyone else does. Much of the piano’s middle-register detail sounds blurry and unfocused (an engineering problem, not a pianistic one!), but subsequent listening with headphones made the situation a little better. Thiollier’s gentle touch and keen ear for nuance also inform the sundry short works filling out this disc. In short, Thiollier’s pleasing, communicative music making nicely supplants the above mentioned reference versions.
