Alexander Melnikov’s passion for playing on historically appropriate instruments bore tremendous fruit on his last album, on which he performed Schubert, Chopin, Liszt and Stravinsky on carefully-chosen, chronologically-matched pianos. He makes a similarly sensitive choice on this disc, part of Harmonia Mundi’s collection of releases commemorating the centenary of Debussy’s death.

The Érard of the composer’s day on which Melnikov performs here sounds more delicate, more refined and more brittle (particularly in the bass) than a modern concert grand, and with the pianist taking nothing for granted, this survey of the Préludes transports you, vividly, into a salon in pre-WWI Paris; Melnikov’s playing is reminiscent of that age too, in its inquisitive, subjective, bold approach to...