"We are more used to encountering Imogen Cooper in Beethoven and Schubert, but these tonepoems have unlocked a new seam of poetry in her playing ... Cooper's pianism has a rare refinement, and is hyper-sensitive to the composer's demands ... This recording reflects is the collision between French control and Spanish abandon ... The whole thing is studded with lovely moments ... Brava!"

"Editor's choice: It is difficult to imagine Debussy-playing more personal, suggestive or voluptuous. Cooper has lived with this music long and well ... Cooper gives us an Albéniz entirely her own, all the more vivid perhaps for its vantage from the outside looking in. Piquant, understated, with a sultry heat that smoulders rather than bursting into flame, these are compelling performances informed by the palette of Goya and undergirded with an inerrantly zesty rhythmic élan ... For some bottom-line terrific piano-playing and programming that inflames the imagination, I suggest you set your internal default to 'luxe, calme et volupté' and prepare for departure. A wonderful journey awaits"

Vurdering: 4/5

"Outwardly sweet-toothed, inwardly thoughtful, a take on music's enduring Gallic-Iberian love affair ... Ravel's 1899 piano original of Pavane pour une infante défunte defeats the best players ... Cooper proves otherwise. Her legato, texturing and velvet sonorities generate a landscape of grave beauty, paced and unhurried. Refusing to rush, allowing time and air, colour and depth their own continuum, ebbing and flowing, pays dividends throughout the thirteen subsequent pieces ... modern pyro-technicians find greater cut-glass dimension, more bravura tartness, in Ravel's 'Alborada del gracioso' (from Miroirs) and Debussy's L'Isle joyeuse, but Cooper brings to the table a wine of vintage and body, a mellowed maturity, a sudden tang, frequently to be preferred"