Vikingur Olafsson Debussy - Rameau 180g 2LP

TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Classical

TAS Rated 5/5 Music, 5/5 Sonics in the September 2020 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

NPR's The 50 Best Albums Of 2020 - Rated 37/50!

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Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as an artist who "creates unique aural landscapes," Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson continues his acclaimed recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon with the release of Debussy · Rameau. Following two albums featured in NPR Music's Top 10 Classical Albums (Glassin 2017 and Bach in 2018), Ólafsson's third album pairs works by two French composers separated by well over a century: Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy.

Olafsson's rendering of this music is distinctive: he plays everything with exquisite clarity, agility, and delicacy. There are no exaggerated dynamics, no italicized flourishes, no 'atmsopheric' pedalings that blur the lines, no showy mannerisms - and the result is revelatory. Rameau's charming dances and evocative musical scenes sound far more modern, more adventurous, more fresh and inventive, than ever before, and indeed make this 80-minute long release well worthwhile for this delightful music by itself. On the other hand, Olafsson's also-beautifully-played excerpts from Debussy's Preludes, Images, Estampes, and Children's Corner suggest a till-now unheard kinship to his great French predecessor. Harmonically searching but sensuous, evocative, and tender, the music of both men seems somehow removed from time, at once modern and ancient - the true hallmark of great art.

In an album of kaleidoscopic color, light and shade, the Icelandic pianist sets up a fascinating musical 'dialog' between two French radicals who lived some 200 years apart. The baroque-era Jean-Philippe Rameau literally wrote the book on French harmony, while Claude Debussy, in the early 20th century, threw its ideas out the window, as Ólafsson says. Pieces from each composer seem to be in conversation with each other. Debussy's respect for Rameau's keyboard style is found in 'The Snow is Dancing.' It sits beside Rameau's 'Les tendres plaints,' which unfolds in striking, almost Debussy-like harmonies. A highlight of this endlessly listenable album is 'The Arts and the Hours,' Ólafsson's own beautifully measured, transfixing arrangement of a scene from Rameau's final opera – sure to lower you blood pressure by at least 10 points.