Debussy: Pour le Piano; Estampes; L'isle joyeuse, Szymanowski: Prelude & Fugue in C sharp minor; Sonata in C minor CD review Since sweeping the board in terms of prizes at the 2005 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, the young Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz has, understandably enough, been identified as a Chopin specialist. His DG recordings have included the complete preludes (477 6592) released in 2007 and the two concertos (477 8088) of 2009, but in between be produced a disc of Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart sonatas (477 7453). Moreover, while his Debussy centres on familiar items such as Pour le piano, Estampes and L'isle joyeuse, his Szymanowski steers away from the usual Métopes and Masques and instead focuses on the much less well-known C sharp minor Prelude and Fugue of 1905 and the First Sonata of 1904. Both are early works, written a decade or so before Métopes and Masques, but they already reveal the seeds of the heady intensity of expression that was to mark Szymanowski's later music, while at the same time nodding to the legacy of Chopin and to the German Romantic tradition. Schumann seems to be an influential force in the sonata, with a touch of Skryabinesque spice, rapture and harmonic freedom, but it is a hugely confident work, interpreted by Blechacz in a way that brings out its ripe personal voice and responds to its dramatic breadth of architecture as well as to the powerful momentum of the fugal finale and to the poignant delicacy of the slow movement. The disc is worth having for the Szymanowski alone, but Blechacz's Debussy is also a joy of limpid colour and immaculately weighed articulation, encapsulating the character and imagery of the music with a masterly and imaginative touch.