Vanessa Wagner - Debussy: Images & Estampes (2005)

Exploring Debussy's works for his own instrument, the piano, is akin to opening a book on the history of musical language. Debussy's piano compositions are alwasy as much "piano" as they are "Debussy". The ear of the composer could be called an "imaginative ear". Debussy's ear was not only his modern characteristic. A devoted reader, art-lover and talented writer, he was more in tune with his time than any of his musical contemporaries. Like Beethoven and Diabelli Variations, however, he could not prevent himself, as he descended into the world of common morals, to write with such senstivitiy that the piece was transformed willy-nilly into a veritable work of art.