Two books of Debussy’s piano preludes were composed in 1910 and 1913, respectively. Unlike similar opuses by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and others, they had no tonal sequence, and each piece was conceived as an individual work. In whole, the cycle is a sort of concise encyclopedia of the great French composer’s music with its fanciful and sophisticated, but so imperceptibly attractive combination of romanticism and impressionism, centuries-old traditions of piano music and cultural paradoxes of the 20th century. The titles Debussy gave to each of the preludes (they are sooner poetic metaphors) are put in the end rather than in the beginning of the notes and not intended to impose a certain character on the listener. Instead, they seem to ask riddles as if they check whether the mood of a piece is caught correctly.
Debussy’s preludes found a fine and thoughtful interpreter in the person of Alexei Lyubimov.
A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus, from the very first steps of his artistic career the pianist was not only inclined to unconventional performing solutions and actively collaborated with modern authors, but also showed a great interest in playing long-forgotten music and was one of the first musicians to learn authentic instruments of the clavier family (harpsichord, hammer clavier, etc). Lyubimov was the first Soviet pianist who recorded Debussy’s piano preludes.
