Tor Espen Aspaas - Paul Dukas - Complete Works for Piano Solo (2004)

Paul Dukas, we hardly know you. Sure, everyone knows The Sorcerer's Apprentice: who will ever forget the image of Mickey Mouse and all those maniacal broomsticks? But as for the rest of his output, as for his opera, symphony, or piano music, well, that we hardly knew. But as anyone who has actually ever heard Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, the Symphony in C major, or the Piano Sonata in E flat minor will tell you, there is more to Dukas than waterlogged mice. They will tell you that Paul Dukas is, in fact, a great composer.

Indeed, it would be difficult to hear this 2004 recording of Dukas' piano music by Tor Espen Aspaas and not come away with the conviction that Dukas is a great composer. Aspaas holds the 45-minute, four-movement Sonata in the palm of his hand, illuminating its virtuoso depths while revealing its expressive profundities. In Aspaas' cogent and compelling performance, Dukas' Sonata sounds like one of the great post-Beethoven piano sonatas and arguably the greatest French piano sonatas ever composed. Aspaas' performance of the expansive and inventive Rameau Variations is equally convincing, his performance of the oddly elegant Prelude elegiaque is uniquely touching, and his performance of the quietly lamenting La plainte pour le tombeau du Claude Debussy is transcendentally moving. In short, for those who hardly know Dukas, Aspaas' superb disc is a wonderful place to start learning. Simax's sound is vivid and immediate.