Jean-Efflam Bavouzet BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas 1

Freedom towards rhythm, passagework impulsively incautious, insight into music streaming through a unique combination of intellectual and emotional responses, and an ability to maintain suspense over long spans: that was Artur Schnabel, one of the most singular of 20th-century pianists, whose 1930s recordings of Beethoven are still available. And inimitable; but can you go the other way?

Muted beginnings from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet suggest that you can. Make no mistake, his playing is immaculate. Yet in a number of sonatas his is, mostly, an immaculate presentation of their structural logic. The first movement of Op 2 No 1 (placement is in chronological order) isn’t a fiery exposé and the slow movement, taken too quickly for Adagio, is no more than elegant. They represent how little Bavouzet gives of himself in many a movement, though not all. He drops some inhibitions to get close to the spirit inherent in the Largo appassionato of Op 2 No 2 and the finales of Op 2 Nos 1 and 2. Inexplicably, then, he reverts to form in the Adagio of Op 2 No 3, depriving the long E minor section of its moody poetry to which András Schiff homes in shrewdly; and, unlike François-Frédéric Guy, he balks at scaling the full dimension of the awesome Largo con gran espressione from Op 7, where ‘measured silence becomes as eloquent as sound’ (Denis Matthews). As in Op 13, too, Bavouzet goes thus far and no further.

The tide turns with Op 10. Excellent pianism now gets bedded into genuine interpretation. Bavouzet jettisons fastidious reserve for a personal perspicacity that reaches deep into the music and, heard from the first bars of the C minor Sonata, No 1, the upwardly sweeping motifs tautly heralding the drama to come. Besides, he stays the course, not only here but in the other two sonatas as well, animating, broadening, retarding and accenting lines, implied passions revealed according to how he senses them. But grip doesn’t slip, as in the coda of the first sonata’s slow movement. The last 11 bars, marked pianissimo, are recreated with a mastery over pedalling, dynamics and weighting of notes, a mastery that also touches the droll humour in the fugue-style finale of No 2 and despair in the Largo e mesto of No 3. Similar acumen is retained for the Op 14 pair, only tainted by a miscalculated choice of allegretto for the Andante of No 2.

Two rejected movements from Op 10 No 1 are included. Make of them what you will, and tolerate a piano closely miked so as to negate venue ambience. But unyielding sound – more so on discs 2 and 3 – notwithstanding, Bavouzet when performing at his finest is the thing here. Do listen. (Nalen Anthoni / Gramophone)