Written between 1909 and 1913, Préludes are probably Claude Debussy's most important work for piano. It consists in a series of 24 short pieces, equally subdivided into two books.
Unlike Chopin's, Bach's and many other composer's homonymous series, these pieces aren't sorted by key signature. Debussy gave a title to all of the 24 preludes and decided to place them at the end of each piece. This choice is mainly addressed to the performer to encourage him to find his own interpretation but it also points out that it's the music here that will suggest the titles and not vice versa. Being certainly the peak of maturity in Debussy's musical experience, these pieces also carry the youthful energy of the author's early pieces. This combination of both aspects of Debussy's personal style gives this music an unique feature: here, music and dramaturgy express and support each other mutually, letting each idea unfold and develop achieving a brilliant balance between its strong inspiration sources and Debussy's consumate mastery of composing. Such quality is rarely to find in the repertoire of concert music, making Préludes a milestone for musicians of all sorts.
Recording taken by engineer Alessandro Simonetto, is in pure-stereo HD 88.2/24-bits using microphones Sennheiser and pres/converters Prism Sound.