Music from a mysterious centre

Mozart: Piano Concertos K.175, 238, 246, 271; Overtures

This is the fifth release in the "Mozart, made in Manchester" series from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata under Gábor Takács-Nagy, and we have a double helping of Mozart-y goodness here: two well-filled discs with four early piano concertos and five (!) overtures. This is becoming my favourite Mozart piano concerto series with a modern piano (Bavouzet plays a 9-foot Yamaha concert grand). Bavouzet and Takács-Nagy have great chemistry, and their easy, slightly swinging give-and-take continues here. It's a huge plus in this particular repertoire, since the charm of the four concertos Mozart wrote between December 1773 and January 1777 would be irreparably harmed by brusqueness on the one hand, or over-delicacy on the other. In the words of Karl Barth, "Knowing all, Mozart creates music from a mysterious centre, and so knows the limits to the right and the left, above and below. He maintains moderation."

I've always enjoyed concert programs and recordings that connect Mozart's piano concertos with the stage, whether it be concert arias or, as we have here, overtures to Mozart's operas. Some of these pieces are slight, but none of them is small, each making its dramatic points in Mozart's natural home, the operatic stage. With these four concertos (and a fifth from the same period, the triple concerto K. 242 from 1776) Mozart created a new genre, which brought the broad comedy, pathos and complex emotional power of opera to the concert stage. The big advantage of having these five overtures included is the chance to have the focus shifted to the very fine instrumentalists of the Manchester Camerata, who of course play brilliantly in the concertos as well. These works extend the range from two operas written in 1772 (Il sogno di Scipione and Lucio Silla) all the way to 1779-80 (Zaïde, written just before Mozart's great run of the 1780s).

These recordings were made at The Stoller Hall, Hunts Bank, Manchester, in May of 2019. It's been called "... the most acoustically advanced concert hall in the country." The sound here is definitely up to Chandos's high standard, and its clarity and depth certainly suits - and enhances - this music.

Mozart in concert at The Stoller Hall. Photo: Anthony Robling

What a great way to begin 2020!

This album will be released on March 6, 2020.

What it's like to be human

Mozart: Piano Concertos K. 466, 467; Don Giovanni Overture

In 1946 photographer Arnold Newman was asked by Harper's Bazaar to provide a portrait of Igor Stravinsky:

I thought, how do I photograph this great composer? It hit me that the lid of a piano is like the shape of a musical flat symbol - strong, linear, and beautiful, just like Stravinsky's work.

The result is one of the greatest musician portraits ever made.

This new Chandos album is the fourth in their Mozart Piano Concerto series with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata under the direction of Gabor Takacs-Nagy. And it features the fourth cover photo by the London-based photographer Benjamin Ealovega, some of which are variations on the Newman-Stravinsky model.  All four reflect perfectly the informal elegance and taste (such a Mozartian word!) of the music on the disc inside the album. In Newman's portrait Stravinsky might represent the severe formal properties of music which go back to Bach, and beyond him, back to ancient Greece. But Ealovega provides a much more humble, human scenario to represent Mozart and his music. Also, in the 21st century way, he deconstructs the piano itself, to see what makes it tick.

There's a famous quote by Douglas Adams that goes "Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe." In this schema, Newman's Stravinsky tells you what it's like to be the underlying shapes and contours of music, and thus of the universe. That's not Bach, but it's nothing to sneeze at! However, there are plenty of us who come down strongly on the side of Mozart, balancing the carnal and the spiritual in a charming tale of human relationships, made for the opera stage, but beautifully transferred into one of the greatest of all musical forms, Mozart's own piano concerto. And Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, with strong support from Takacs-Nagy and his Manchester musicians, puts together the pieces of this puzzle - all human relationship stories become puzzles soon enough - into a perfect picture of an 18th century - and 21st century - garden of delights.

Though there are many glories in Mozart's earlier piano concertos, it was in February and March of 1785 that he perfected this dynamic, theatrical musical form, with the D minor Concerto, K. 466 and the C major work, K. 467. As has been the case with their earlier Mozart releases. Bavouzet and Takacs-Nagy feel free to let the music fly, seemingly unconstrained by conventional views of Mozart. In the D minor Concerto Bavouzet chooses Beethoven's cadenzas, while he adapts Friedrich Gulda's jazzy ones in his performance of the C major work. Gulda lurks behind these, and other, Concertos in the Mozart series; there is the same spirit of quirky joy here. I couldn't possibly give much higher praise.

Gabor Takacs-Nagy and the Manchester Camerata squeeze in the Overture from Don Giovanni between the two Concertos. Though the work shares a key with K. 466, and it reminds us of all sorts of vital theatrical connections in the Piano Concertos, it's still a bit of a surprise to hear this dramatic tale of Judgement in this particular place in the program. Of course, it's played with wit and style, but I would have preferred it at the end of the program. Still, this is a minor peccadillo in a superb project; it's very highly recommended.

This album will be released on June 7, 2019.

Masterworks from a marvellous month

Mozart: Piano Concertos K. 450 & K. 451; Quintet for Piano & Winds, K. 452

While I was listening to this new release from Chandos's great Mozart Piano Concertos series from Manchester, I happened to read an essay about Imposter Syndrome. The first recommended strategy for dealing with this issue, common in the arts, academia, and other competitive arenas, is "compare like to like," which is a blanket warning to stay away from comparing yourself to Mozart. As Tom Lehrer said in 1965: "It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." This new Chandos disc from the marvellous pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, with superb support from the Manchester Camerata under Gabor Takacs-Nagy, is the best possible example of why Mozart is almost sui generis as a high achiever. In one month, March of 1784, Mozart wrote three masterpieces, breaking new ground in the piano concerto genre he helped to perfect, with dramatic, exciting new sonorities, especially relating to the interplay of piano and wind instruments. All three together on one disc really underlines this nearly incredible accomplishment.

Mozart is often hailed as a great child prodigy, but as a composer it's the huge musical strides he made in his mid- to late-20s that I find most miraculous. The beginnings of Mozart's wind instrument revolution is perhaps his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, from 1782. One almost feels the instruments moving on stage as they comment on the action and the characters' emotions, and with the twin works K. 450 and K. 451 Mozart brings this drama, this theatricality, even, to his favourite new genre for self-promotion, the piano concerto. As appealing as both works are, Mozart was nowhere near ready to rest on his laurels; the true flowering of the genre was to come two years later in 1786, with the great works written around the landmark opera The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492. The Manchester team shines in both piano concertos here; the martial D major work with its glitter and mock pomp and the B-flat major concerto more intimate, an engrossing, quietly domestic comedy of manners. Bavouzet's touch is perfect, and perfectly matched to his colleagues. It's been so exciting to hear his partnership with Takacs-Nagy develop in the past few years.

Rubens: Miraculous Fishing, c.1610, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne,
from the recent exhibition Rubens: Painter of Sketches, at the Museo Nacional del Prado 

At one point in that marvellous March, Mozart took time out to take a step back from the piano concerto to write his Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, K. 452. It's like an oil sketch by a great master, to go with the large-scale oil paintings of K. 450 and 451. The talented leaders of the wind sections of the Manchester Camerata set to work with Bavouzet on an even more intimate stage, but it's still a stage. The Larghetto especially sets a very operatic confession scene that anticipates Figaro and Don Giovanni. It's great music making, and, like this entire album, a humbling experience for the listener.

Stylish, spirited, sparkling Mozart

Mozart Piano Concertos, v. 2: K. 449 & K. 459, plus Divertimenti K. 136 & K. 138

The second volume in the new Chandos Mozart Piano Concertos series from Manchester, with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, is pretty much what we've come to expect from this combination of superb musicians: stylish, spirited, sparkling Mozart with a real feeling of freshness. Mozart spoke a fair amount in his letters of playing music with taste, but I'm afraid some musicians take that to mean a safe, middle-of-the-road approach that drains the life out of this mercurial music. The last thing one would say about Bavouzet and Takacs-Nagy's Mozart is that it is careful;  they take full advantage of the range of musical opportunities Mozart offers the performer, plus some the composer wouldn't have dreamt of, all on the positive side, I hasten to add. These two concertos come at a time when Mozart made a true leap from the delightfully prodigious master of the International Style of the time to a period where his emerging genius began to build rapidly towards the greatness of The Marriage of Figaro and the instrumental works which surround it. This was his Rubber Soul and Revolver period, to speak in the language of The Beatles. It's a time of surprises.

I can never listen to the Divertimentos Mozart wrote in Salzburg in 1772 without a smile on my face. This isn't profound music, but it's well-made and designed to do just that: make people feel good. The middle work, K. 137, was included in the first volume of the Chandos series; K. 136 and 138 are added here as fairly substantial bonuses. Takacs-Nagy and the Manchester Camerata absolutely nail this music; it's just like With the Beatles!

Transcendental modernist masterworks from Australia

The third volume in Sir Andrew Davis's Charles Ives series for Chandos includes my favourite Charles Ives work, and my favourite American symphony, "The Camp Meeting", Ives' Third. A cherished RCA Red Seal LP from 1969 began this crush: Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Then came Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, Andrew Litton - my goodness, Ives is very well-served on disc!

Davis has everything in hand, Ives-wise, with his musicians Down Under. After a pretty solid beginning, each new disc has been better than the last. Davis runs through Symphony no. 3 at a brisk pace, a bit zippier than Ormandy and much quicker than the reverent Leonard Bernstein NY Philharmonic recording from 1983. But there's no lack of weight to the Melbourne Symphony's playing, though their string sound isn't quite up to the New Yorkers or the Fabulous Philadelphians, helped as it is by the typically full and warm Chandos sound.  Nearly all of my favourite music has some sort of nostalgic sadness or saudade, as they say in Brazil. Davis brings this out beautifully, especially in the 1st movement: "Old Folks Gatherin'". This helps to underline the humorous passages, never far away in Ives, that pop up later in the symphony.

In the amazing 4th Symphony Davis has an ace in the hole: pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who is blazing a luminous trail for Chandos in a wide variety of music: Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok, Stravinsky and more. This is nothing as orthodox as a piano concerto, but it calls for all of Bavouzet's virtuosity and musicianship. The French pianist has a particularly light touch, which is welcome, as the piano comments on the action, occasionally egging the orchestra on to furious action, or going off on jazzy tangents of its own. This amazing work takes hard-core New England Transcendentalism, runs it through Ives's one-of-a-kind imagination, and ends up as a completely home-grown Modernist masterpiece. That's one heck of an accomplishment that I can hardly believe even as I listen to it. Sir Andrew Davis deserves a lot of credit for taking Ives out of his flinty New England soil and have it sound so right and natural in Australia.

This disc is due to be released on March 3, 2017.

Robust, theatrical, beautiful Mozart

Back in October 2014 I praised pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and conductor Gabor Takacs-Nagy for their delicate but spicy way with Haydn piano concertos. I obviously liked what I heard, because I compared Bavouzet's playing to Bill Evans, who is my piano god. These musicians were in a really special groove then, and two years later here we are with even greater music, and that special feeling is still going strong. Both of these works from 1784 are perfect jewels. You'd think that a private, intimate feeling would be the goal for music of such beauty, but Mozart is above all social, and there's a robust and often dramatic underlying strength that can't be missed. Mozart talks often about "good taste" in music, but there's a theatrical sweep that would be lost if the musicians play too prettily. No Dresden china here! Bavouzet's bravura playing and his cheeky, jazzy cadenzas are just what's required, and Takacs-Nagy is with him every step of the way. These are exactly what I want in Mozart piano concertos.

There are a couple of bonuses on the disc. Bavouzet plays, with aplomb of course, Mozart's original cadenzas from the first two movements of K. 453, which are familiar, clever and moving. I love Bavouzet's slightly twisted cadenzas, but the more traditional among you can imagine these in their place. And the piano is rolled away to allow the Manchester Camerata to take a solo turn, in the Divertimento K. 137 from 1772. This is lighter and frothier than the more mature concertos, but just as delicious. The new disc drops on October 28, 2016.


I just went to the Manchester Camerata website, and I see that Bavouzet will be playing more Mozart there next spring. Here's what's on the program for the Mozart Madness concert in March 2017:

Mozart   Divertimento in D Major K.136
Mozart   Piano Concerto No.14 in E Flat Major K.449
Mozart   Divertimento in F K.138
Mozart   Piano Concerto No.19 in F Major K.459

I hope at least some of these end up on a Chandos CD next year!

Superb Stravinsky, with a light touch

From February 3, 2015:

After loving the dazzling recordings that Chandos released of Prokofiev and Haydn Piano Concertos with British orchestras, I wondered what the French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet would be up to next. I was so pleased to see the announcement by the same record company of this excellent program of Stravinsky works for piano and orchestra. This was clearly music to which Bavouzet was well suited, and in which he could provide his usual blend of élan, wit and solid musicianship. His light touch might temper the tendency which still exists to take the often stern Stravinsky too seriously. This time Bavouzet would be reunited with the conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, with whom he recorded a Gramophone Award winning disc of concerted works by Ravel, Debussy and Massenet in 2011. And the two were off in May 2014 to Sao Paulo to record there with Tortelier’s former orchestra.

Up until now I’ve known the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Osesp, as it’s known in Brazil) exclusively playing music of Brazilian composers, and especially Villa-Lobos. In this repertoire they’ve recorded quite a bit, for BIS and Naxos especially, and they pretty much rule. I’ve heard about their trips to Europe, and the strong notices they’ve received for concerts and recordings in a wide range of repertoire with Yan Pascal Tortelier and their new musical director Marin Alsop. Osesp, which is now the best South American orchestra, seems to be making its way into the top tier of orchestras internationally.

The orchestral players, often equal partners in Stravinsky’s scores, excel in this music as much as the soloist. This is especially true of the wind players, and is most especially evident in the strongest work on the disc, the early 1920s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments. In all four works Tortelier keeps everything in balance and in forward motion. He ensures that the broad range of varied textures, from the pianist’s immersion within the densest, loudest orchestral sounds of Petrouchka to the spare, brittle sounds of the serial Movements, always make musical sense. The Chandos engineers are, I’m sure sometimes breathlessly, swept along while providing really excellent, lifelike Super Audio CD sound.

Delicate but spicy Haydn

October 30, 2014:

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has often been praised for his light touch, which is a must for Haydn, especially when using a Steinway rather than a fortepiano. But to drain too much drama and dynamism from the deceptively simple Haydn piano concertos is to miss their essential nature. Haydn was an accomplished and innovative dramatist, as we learn from the slow acceptance of his operatic repertoire on disc, if not in North American opera houses. Like Mozart’s piano concertos, the Haydn works sound operatic, and the D major 11th concerto especially has the light and dark of the stage, with a dramatic arc that includes pratfalls and soulful episodes, and ends with a triumphant comedic resolution.

Bavouzet walks this difficult path with apparent ease, and he is ably supported by the Manchester Camerata. Conductor Gabor Takacs-Nagy highlights the spicy Hungarian paprika that Haydn includes in so many passages, and he and Bavouzet seem to be of one mind when it comes to the design of these performances. I’m quite taken with the pianist’s cadenzas, especially the striking one at the end of the slow movement of the F major 3rd concerto. Bavouzet says his inspiration for this was Friedrich Gulda, but I was reminded of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans. For me, that’s the highest praise possible!