Debussy’s Clair de lune is so familiar that a performance must earn attention, and Anna Kislitsyna’s studio recording does exactly that. A 1915 survey of piano music heard in this piece, and in no other early Debussy work, a trace of “the delicate impressionism which has made his better known music unique.” Kislitsyna makes the opening as quiet as anything in the performance, as the pianissimo marking asks, and lets the first long phrases take their time. From there the music opens out gradually. Through the Tempo rubato and Un poco mosso passages the sound grows fuller and the pulse moves forward step by step, as the score requests. The En animant section at 1:57 is the fullest and most forward-moving point of the reading, yet the tone stays rounded rather than hard. Just as impressive is the way she lets it go. The Calmato draws the level back down, and when the opening theme returns at 2:38 she takes the slowest tempo of the performance, letting the closing pages fade as the morendo marking requests. Harriette Brower praised Debussy’s “exquisitely clear, pellucid style,” and that clarity is what this playing preserves, the rippling accompaniment rarely blurring. The film moves between her hands and a side view of a Steinway grand set against dark drapes, keeping the attention on the sound. One viewer left a short word of thanks, and it is deserved. This is a Clair de lune built on restraint and proportion, and it is well worth hearing.