Jean-Efflam Bavouzet HAYDN Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1

Interesting that the most intelligent musicians, the deepest-thinking of them, all maintain Haydn as a private passion. Sure, pianists revere Bach as the purest of all composers. The theologian Karl Barth surmised as much: the angels, he supposed, played Bach in praise of the Almighty, while en famille he was sure they played Mozart. Barth, though, for all his theology, didn’t consider Haydn. Pianists such as McCabe, Brendel, Schiff, Staier, up to (most notably among recent discs) Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin – all these musicians have indulged listeners with their love of Haydn’s sonatas, and now Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, acclaimed as a Debussy pianist (all five volumes of the French composer’s piano works, if I’m not mistaken, have been selected as Gramophone Editor’s Choices), has placed himself among their number.

Bavouzet’s approach to four of Haydn’s sonatas from in and around the 1770s is perhaps closer to that of Andsnes than it is to the nonchalant brilliance of Hamelin. The two minor-key sonatas on the present disc also feature in Andsnes’s selection (EMI, 5/99); the B minor work and the two major-key sonatas are on Hamelin’s first volume (Hyperion, 5/07). Clarity of line is paramount in this music and that is what Bavouzet delivers: he views the sonatas with sobriety but by no means dispassionately. While these are not “difficult” works in terms of breathtaking virtuosity, they require great reserves of control from a pianist. Bavouzet responds vividly to the turbulence of the C sharp minor Sonata and the hieratic unfolding of the B minor, and is equal to the sudden shifts of mood within movements, while the toccata-like writing that features in so much of Haydn’s keyboard writing never becomes hectoring or hammered-out. Discreet ornamentation adds allure to music that offers both majesty and sweetness, and ranges from the grand gesture to Haydn’s trademark high jinks, right down to the disconsolate minuet that draws the C sharp minor Sonata to its downbeat conclusion. I’ve mentioned some of my favourite Haydn pianists above, and Bavouzet joins them with the first disc in what I hope will be a long and comprehensive series. (David Threasher / Gramophone)