Clean, colorful, and very light, this disc of
Debussy's works for piano four-hands by
Joseph Tong and
Waka Hasegawa lacks only two things: dynamic range and the ability to evoke the extra-musical associations intrinsic to so much of
Debussy's music. Both players have ample technique. From the artful simplicity of the Petite suite through the extravagant virtuosity of the composer's arrangement of his orchestral masterpiece La Mer,
Tong and
Hasegawa are on top of every note. They also play with enthusiasm: from the rambunctious Marche écossaise sur un théme populaire to the mysterious Six épigraphes antiques,
Tong and
Hasegawa are audibly giving everything they have. But their performances oddly hover between mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte in volume, reducing La Mer, for instance, to a tempest in a teapot -- surely not the proper scale for such a mammoth work, even in a duo piano arrangement. The Six épigraphes antiques sound too au currant and La Mer sounds positively dry docked, lacking any sense of the power or swelling movement of the sea itself. Though Quartz's digital sound flatters the performers, the performers themselves fail to flatter the music.