... Finally there is Mitsuko Uchida, whose legendary 1989 recording continues to exert its spell and makes one long for her to forsake for a period the Viennese classics and return to Debussy (the 24 Préludes for a start). Glowing with a mastery and conviction known to very few pianists, her performances brim over with zest, sheer style and assurance. Scrupulously true to the score, her eagle eye and ear disdain the haze and approximations of others.

Her solutions, however audacious, are formidable and seemingly unarguable (her treatment of the concluding poco meno mosso of Pour les octaves) and what I can only describe as her transcendental dexterity leaves her free to set the music alight with an irrepressible fire and brilliance. Uniquely virtuosic on one level, she is no less acutely responsive to atmosphere, sending the unforgettable opening spiral of Pour les agréments - the ultimate in poetic caprice - lazily spinning into a cloudless azure. Her speed and assurance in Pour les accords make a mockery of more cautious offerings and her pedal technique in the central lento casts an eerie light on one of the most economical but menacing passages in all Debussy.

I can only hope that the critic who complained of a 'lack of tang' in Uchida's playing has heard this record... Here, surely, is an astonishing re-creation of Debussy's triumph of will, of mind over matter, of le dur desir de durer, the harsh contrivance of spirit against death, the hope to overreach time by force of creation.