Debussy / Rodrigues - Reflets - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

With two critically-lauded releases on Navona Records, pianist Eliane Rodrigues returns with Reflets, showcasing the pianist's nuanced and thoughtful performances of fifteen works by Claude Debussy. While it might seem that child prodigies are commonplace in the world of classical music, only a few truly make a lasting impact, one that lives on long after those prodigies have passed well into their adulthoods. Mozart began to play piano at the age of three, Beethoven did so at seven and a half, and Georges Bizet did so before his tenth birthday. Pianist Eliane Rodrigues, who began composing at three, played her first recital at five and first performed with an orchestra when she was just six years of age, can certainly be counted among those prodigious musicians, as evidenced on her latest recording, Reflets. The album opens with InchSuite Bergamasque,Inch one of Debussy's most well-known piano suites. The dynamic contrasts in the moods of the suite's four pieces are well suited to Rodrigues' sensitive and vivid style. Debussy is credited as one of the 'founders' of Impressionist music, distinguished by it's focus on suggestions and atmosphere, a world that Rodrigues also inhabits here, as evidenced by her cascading and powerfully textured performance of Debussy's InchBallade.Inch InchPour le Piano,Inch certainly one of the composer's most moving works for solo piano, features rapid, brilliant passages that fully emphasize the pianist's virtuosity. That impressionistic ability to invoke a mood or a feeling carries on with InchFirst Arabesque in E Major,Inch one of a pair composed early in Debussy's career. InchImages,Inch comprised of two 'books' of three pieces each, ranging from the subdued InchHomage à RameauInch to the energy of InchMouvement,Inch marked by the torrent of notes in it's finale. Eliane Rodrigues was born in Rio de Janiero, where the performances tha