Claude Debussy
-En Blanc et noir
    -Avec emportement (3:56)
    -Lent. Sombre (6:37)
    -Scherzando (4:09)
-Petite Suite
    -En bateau (2:48)
    -Cortege (2:31)
    -Menuet (2:32)
    -Ballet (2:35)
-Nocturnes (trans. by Ravel)
    -Nuages (5:52)
    -Fetes (5:42)
-6 Epigraphes antiques
    -Pour invoquer Pan, dieu vent d“ete (2:17)
    -Pour un tombeau sans nom (3:26)
    -Pour que la nuit soit propice (2:10)
    -Pour la danseuse aux crotales (2:00)
    -Pour l“Egyptienne (2:48)
    -Pour remercier la pluie au matin (1:48)
-Lindaraja (5:17)

total time 57:51
recorded Mol, Belgium
photo by Brigitte Lacombe

The music for two pianists, overlooked to a surprising extent, reflects many aspects of Debussy“s output. It“s not a glamorous medium, but he gave it original and appealing sonorities, from the fluent domestic charm of the Petite suite to the more exploratory and discomforting En blanc et noir. The Labeques bring care for balance to textures that can easily turn dense, and a rhythmic ease that escapes the tyranny of the beat with buoyancy, pace and a light dynamic hand. The booklet does not say what instruments are used, but either they are notably soft-toned or the players treat them with rare subtlety of touch. They can float a melody over a quick accompaniment without having to highlight it, and take Ravel“s transcription of “Fetes“ (from the Nocturnes) - with its typically ingenious pianistic solution for the score“s rapidly repeated notes - well up to orchestral speed. Then, with the Epigraphes, they find an opposite answer for music that often skates elusively by: an unusual breadth, so that the lines can sing out or reach their full melancholy potential.
Robert Maycock (BBC Music)

Following their 1985 Bizet, Faure and Ravel recital for Philips (11/87), Katia and Marielle Labeque now give us a Debussy programme even more stylish and scintillating. Whatever sparkles and delights is here in superabundance. Playing with a fierce, recognizably French clarity and verve they make you doubly aware of the extraordinary force of nature that consumed Debussy during his final years. Faced with the outbreak of war, the possible destruction of his beloved France and his own terminal illness, he composed, among other masterpieces, his En blanc et noir, a wild dreamscape containing some of his most startling and original music. And if the Labeques play with an electrifying bravura. they are no less enviably refined, registering every detail of the score with scrupulous precision and sensitivity (and never more so than in the finale“s flicker ing play of light and shade).
They are no less dazzling in the more openly endearing Petite suite and if “Fetes“ (from the Nocturnes) explodes in an orgy of brilliance (anime et tres rythme) such open display is poetically balanced in Epigraphes antiques, where the duo are hauntingly doux et egal at the close of “Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d“ete““, and memorably lent et expressif in “Pour que la nuit soit propice“. Time and again they show how the finest insights are only available to pianists liberated from all difficulty, who are free to concentrate on a purely musical discourse. The recordings are immaculate, the Labeque sisters“ verve and pianistic aplomb provide a special, crystalline experience.
Bryce Morrison (Gramophone)