It's an inevitable tradeoff: does the listener go for everything the composer ever wrote in a particular genre or do they go for the best possible performances of the best-known works? Inevitably, the answer is both. In the case of Debussy's complete piano music, most listeners will already have as a basic collection Walter Gieseking's magisterial '50s performances of nearly everything the composer wrote known at the time augmented by Michelangeli's crystalline performance, Richter's tensile performances, Argerich's luminous performances, Pollini's lucid performances, Arrau's sonorous performances and perhaps a half-dozen others. Is there room on this crowded shelf for Jean-Pierre Armengaud's more complete than ever four-disc set of Debussy's piano music -- aside, of course, from the fact that it contains the world-premiere recording of an exquisitely beautiful 24-bar piano piece from 1917 entitled Les soirs illumine par l'ardeur du charbon written by the dying composer in thanks for a timely delivery of coal during the last cold winter of the Great War? Armengaud's performances are usually quite good and often better than that. His preludes are wonderfully colorful and marvelously characterized, his Estampes radiate energy, his Images glow luminously, and his Berceuse héroique glowers dolefully. While the most technically difficult music is slightly beyond Armengaud's reach -- neither his L'isle joyeuse nor his etudes are always entirely on top of the notes -- he has a subtle tone and a carefully balanced sonority and his interpretations have more soul than French cooler virtuosos like Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Arts' sound is clear and clean and just a little bit too close for comfort. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
![Debussy: Complete Piano Works [Box Set]](http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/amg/classical_albums/cov200/cm100/m167/m16727om6na.jpg)
