The real star here is the piano on which Hubert Rutkowski has recorded these early pieces by Debussy. It’s a superbly maintained 1880 Érard, the model that was generally used for recitals in France at that time, and which was standard issue at the Paris Conservatoire when Debussy was studying there between 1872 and 1884. This, then, is precisely the instrument with which Debussy grew up, and began to imagine his utterly distinctive sound world for the piano. Each register has its own distinctive character, all of them defined by their clarity; there’s no trace of muddiness, and the slenderest pianissimo carries effortlessly. Rutkowski’s performances certainly make the most of these tonal possibilities, even if his playing is sometimes rather strait-laced and rhythmically stiff. Though the first of the arabesques was composed in 1888, most of the pieces in this collection date from the early 1890s, and while a nocturne and a mazurka show how much Debussy then owed to Chopin, by the time of the 1894 Images (not to be confused with the two later sets of Images for piano, written in 1905 and 1907), the style is recognisably that of the mature composer.
