audiophile vinyl.In 1969 Friedrich Gulda had just joined the jazz label MPS - completing a development towards a jazz pianist. Significantly, however, he began there with a classical recording and performed a real miracle with the preludes of the composer, on whose work, after Gulda, jazz music is based to a large extent. He liberated these poetic as well as future-oriented piano miniatures from the nebulous, only seemingly "impressionistic" sound frenzy with which they are so often played. Instead, Gulda used a crystal-clear, sun-drenched style of playing that profited enormously from the harder touch and the freer understanding of the tempo of jazz. The result was a completely new, original and beautiful Debussy, like you had never heard before. The fact that the newly rediscovered Master was thought to be lost and that Debussy's debut on CD has never been released before makes this record one of the most beautiful and significant records in 2007.