Though Debussy’s last major piano work – the 12 Études, completed in 1915 – dominates this disc, it’s the slighter sets by Prokofiev and Bartók composed either side of it (in 1909 and 1919 respectively), that show off Garrick Ohlsson’s playing most convincingly. His powerful technique motors through Prokofiev’s four miniatures with tremendous confidence, relishing their naughty-boy dissonances, and he treats the Lisztian flourishes that occasionally surface in the modernist currents of Bartók’s three pieces with suitable flamboyance. There are some fine moments in the Debussy set, too – crystalline clarity in the opening Pour les Cinq Doigts, perfect staccatos in Pour les Notes Répétées, wonderfully crisp chording in the final study of all – but also occasionally a bit of stiffness, as if Debussy’s backward glances to his early more evocative piano writing cannot be trusted. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Chandos account may be marginally more convincing, but taken together, Ohlsson’s collection is very worthwhile. AC
