Jean-Efflam Bavouzet - Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonatas (Complete), Volume 1-3 (2012-2016) 9CD

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s recordings of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas has emerged in sets of three discs in recent years, and has now been brought together in a chunky box set with each disc nicely held in a card sleeve with full listings on each. Chandos has saved itself the bother of re-designing the set, including three booklets with their original notes and keeping the three-volume concept going. The only flaw with this is that each disc is labelled 1, 2 and 3 for each volume, only indicating to which volume they belong on the back, so it pays to keep them all neatly in order. A plus point is that each work plus track listing is printed on the back of each sleeve, not always a guaranteed detail with these kinds of boxes.

The Chandos label had previously recorded Louis Lortie (review) as its flagship Beethoven complete piano sonatas set, though with some years delay in its completion I have read that it was rather hastily completed a the same time Bavouzet’s set was already commencing production and clearly planned as the new best thing. I still find much to admire in Lortie and he is by no means easy to dismiss, but from the first notes of the Sonata, op. 2 no. 1 you can hear where he is already given to a more romantic view, helped by a bigger acoustic and slower than the classical briskness and clarity of Bavouzet in the early sonatas, reminding us of the young rising star’s connection with Haydn. It’s interesting by the way to hear the difference in recordings between Lortie and Bavouzet from the same Potton Hall venue, the former surrounded by a halo of an acoustic in the 1990s that has been tamed much more for Bavouzet – on blind listening I doubt you would count them as the same venue. I preferred Alfred Brendel on Decca (review) to Lortie at that time, and have had this and András Schiff’s more quirky but still compelling ECM set (review of volume VIII) close to hand as references for the last decade or so. Anyone able to get their hands on Friederich Gulda’s refreshing and powerful 1967 set re-released on the Brilliant Classics or Amadeo/Decca labels are also advised not to hesitate. Jens Laurson’s survey of complete Beethoven sonata sets is highly recommended as a point of reference.

As usual with big sets like this it is less of interest to go through every work than to take samples and see where that takes us. Looking at the Sonata op. 7 it is interesting to hear how Bavouzet and Brendel contrast in terms of their line and legato. Brendel is more liberal with his use of pedal, not really to the detriment of clarity, but certainly smoothing things over from time to time in the first movement. Bavouzet’s pedalling is a little more discreet though not entirely hair-shirt, but his lines and chord transitions are often crisper. The Chandos recording gives an impression of greater dynamic range, though with differing acoustics – Brendel in a far more resonant hall in this case – this is hard to judge. I think Brendel’s slow movements are pretty hard to beat, as he lingers and leans on significant moments just that little bit more than Bavouzet, delivering an extra layer of profundity. Bavouzet’s touch in the third movement is deft and Mozartean where Brendel is a little more wilful, giving effects at those surprise endings that turn out to be more than is necessary. Brendel’s Schubertian lyricism in the final movement draws us in, his velvet bottom-line of touch and dynamic keeping us fascinated. Bavouzet is more Haydnesque here, swifter and more direct, but perhaps closer to Beethoven’s proscriptive gaze, and certainly whipping up quite a storm as the movement progresses.

Igor Levit’s recording of the late Beethoven sonatas on Sony Classical (review) left me with the feeling of Beethoven reaching new heights in the 21st century, upgraded and somehow better understood than before. In his argument for yet another set of Beethoven sonatas, Bavouzet himself argues for the continuum of development in our interaction with this music: “why should music lovers be denied the opportunity to associate the new insights of living musicians with this immortal repertoire?” His clarity in the famous Sonata Op. 13 gives me something of that same feeling, which is only slightly displaced by moments at which he rushes forward in tempo, very mildly spoiling that effect of absolute control. The gorgeous melody in the second movement is read beautifully, with some moments of rhetorical separation keeping us remote from sentimentality. Virtuosity is taken for granted here, but Bavouzet doesn’t bamboozle us with artificially over-cooked tempi, moving the final Rondo on apace, but allowing the music to breathe, and us to breathe along with it.

The opening of the first of the Op. 10 sonatas recalls C.P.E. Bach in Bavouzet’s sharp contrasts and keenly vital dynamic shifts, and the third disc in this set offers Beethoven’s original discarded third movement from this sonata and a reconstruction of the Prestissimo ultimately used with an extended development based on Beethoven’s sketches. Without wishing to gloss over superb playing in the Op. 10 sonatas, including a gorgeous Largo e mesto in No. 3, I would prefer to move on to some of the mid-period works and the Op. 27 pair. The Sonata quasi una fantasia Op. 27 No. 1 is a tricky work to bring off well, and comparing Bavouzet to András Schiff’s live concert luxuriating in the acoustic of the Tonhalle Zurich on ECM 1944 is also a bit like measuring chalk against cheese. Schiff is broader throughout, and as with the earlier Brendel comparison more liberal with his pedal, though not without great clarity of articulation and plenty of contrasts in colour. Bavouzet’s Andante opening to the first movement is more confiding and intimate than Schiff’s, colouring with light and shade, and giving maximum clarity to the Allegro central section. The tempo is not wildly fast in the following Allegro molto e vivace, more a gentle gallop, but with some intriguing effects in the up-beat of those frenetic octaves at the end. The Adagio con espressione is rich and perfectly weighted, the final Allegro vivace suitably spectacular. What we’ve all really been waiting for is the “Moonlight” Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, the famously atmospheric opening of which Bavouzet does not linger over-fondly, preferring to keep us aware of the tonal progression and melodic expressiveness of this magical movement. Schiff is the odd man out here, not only zipping along at a rate that shaves a good 45 seconds off Bavouzet’s by no means excessive duration, but observing Beethoven’s eccentric sustain pedal marking, holding the thing down implacably from beginning to end. Bavouzet tones down his articulation, rounding off any sharp edges in the central Allegretto where Schiff teases us with the spaces between the phrases and keeps us more in a playful Mozartean mood. He is also more extreme and stormy in the final Presto agitato, making more of an orchestral impression than Bavouzet’s controlled and contained, but still rewardingly virtuosic reading.

Of the Op. 31 set I focussed on the ‘Tempest’ as perhaps the better known of the three. That ‘stormy’ character I heard in Schiff might be expected in a sonata with such a subtitle, but Bavouzet’s clear-headed approach is maintained here also. I would consider Naum Grubert on the Navis Classics label (review) to be as clear-headed as anyone, but there is a theatrical nature to this music that arises the moment the comparison commences. Hitting a tad harder on accented downbeats, darkening transitions and suspending us with timeless moments in the first movement and indeed the Adagio, as well as adding just a little extra stress and sustain to the deceptive minor-key jollity of the final Allegretto all add up to make this performance all the more distinguished and distinctive the more I hear it. Bavouzet is very good indeed, but more generic. There is drama in his first movement, but I hear it as more melodramatic and operatic than a drama that can play out in your mind. The Adagio is sustained and lovely, particularly in the lyrical second section, but not particularly searching or deep. The final Allegretto has elegance and attack, but I miss that extra ounce of passion to whip up some serious foam on the ocean.

When it comes to the late sonatas I have in recent years turned most frequently to Igor Levit’s double CD set, listening each time with no little sense of wonder at how he clarifies these ‘difficult’ works, giving them a sense of logic and ease of comprehension that has a revelatory feel, especially in the final three opus numbers of 109, 110 and 111. Bavouzet’s control and clarity led me to hope for something similar, that air of “bearing witness to this evolution” of Beethoven as we hear him today bringing about new insights as one of the latest in a long and distinguished line who have climbed this Everest in music. There is something in the way Levit layers his sonority, placing velvet softness against centred projection, that I don’t quite hear in Bavouzet. The feel of his slow movements lacks jaw-dropping involvement as a result – there always seeming to be an emotional seed planted that never quite reaches maturity. There is great poise and directness of communication in his playing of all these sonatas however, and these final works are far more enjoyable than impenetrable as a result. He mentions Op. 110 being for him like “a kind of mini-opera. With a recitative, two arias, and its enigmatic symbols, it almost qualifies as a piece of programme music.” This throws up as many questions as it does answers, but these kinds of clues to a performer’s way of thinking can direct our own understanding of music that can otherwise seem all too abstract. My favourite bit of this particular sonata from Bavouzet is the way he finds his way through the complex counterpoint of the Fuga, making it into an ‘ensemble’ set piece out of which the Klagender Gesang emerges as a tragic solo, ultimately to rise above all in the triumphant conclusion.

The final Sonata Op. 111 is given a tremendously vibrant performance by Bavouzet, who again rises to the massive challenge of the first movement’s remarkable counterpoint, making those voices thrown around all over the place into something with its own animated inner-life, a place of excitement rather than one of baffling entanglement. Bavouzet writes of the second movement that the ‘cantabile’ marking for the theme implies a tempo in which the human voice should be able to sing “without the need to take breaths at inappropriate places.” With a timing of 15:21, this momentum brings Bavouzet in a good two and a half minutes shorter than Levit, who also doesn’t particularly linger. Brendel and Schiff also come in at just over 18 minutes. The advantage of the quicker tempo is a lighter and more rhythmically animated feel to the subsequent variations, which Beethoven requires to be played at the same tempo as the theme. Bavouzet’s traversal of those seemingly unplayable trill passages is magical.

I know I’ve missed out on mentioning vast swathes of sonatas from this complete set, but the essence of such a collection is the impression it leaves as a whole: the evocations it throws up when you are perusing the spines of your collection to decide into which experience you seek to dive at that particular moment. The very lowest denominator is that it keeps you involved, listening and fascinated, even when Beethoven is rolling out yet another set of variations. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has given us a set of the Beethoven piano sonatas with clarity of vision, while at the same time full of vitality and breathtaking virtuosity. He is indeed one of those pianists who can make Beethoven sound ‘easy’, giving us the accessible while taking little away from that feeling of heroic achievement from both composer and performer. There have been occasions when slow movements have initially left me rather cold, but I’ve only been living with this set for a few weeks, and I have the feeling my ears also need to raise their game and evolve to fully appreciate ‘the truth behind the notes’. Indeed, each time I pick out another disc to revisit I learn new things about both Beethoven and Bavouzet’s performances – an evolution that promises to bring the satisfaction of discovery for a long time to come.

Review by Dominy Clements, MusicWeb-International.com

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.

Review by Nalen Anthoni, Gramophone

Not every track on these three CDs is perfection but they proclaim an artist of exceptional calibre establishing a position as an important player of Beethoven. And without doubt he is a quite wonderful pianist, it seems to me, in his prime, with a thrust and command of brilliance and musical energy that are controlled by a most likeable personality. We’ve come to admire him in many composers, and in a touching contribution to these booklet-notes he wonders if he can justify adding another Beethoven sonata cycle to the many already available. My answer is an enthusiastic yes.

Listening to him in pieces which articulate Beethoven’s journey from his first maturity to his ‘second period’, you sense, all over again, how it obviously gave the composer pleasure to demonstrate how what is expressed is indissolubly linked to its technical execution, both for him and for the pianist; the one illuminates the other. The compositions soon leave the amateur pianist behind and indeed disregard the capacities of all would-be performers, as well as the audience. I believe it was to someone complaining the piano music was so difficult that Beethoven expressed the view that ‘struggles and difficulties were not obstacles to be avoided but welcomed as a means of reaching the heights, good features in a composition therefore, the difficulties for the performer included…since what is difficult makes one sweat’. Now go home and practise.

Characteristic of Bavouzet everywhere is an ineluctable forward movement, a thrust and passion for what is to come, in the light of what we’re hearing now and what we’ve heard a moment ago. His freshness and directness are delightful, the virtuosity often breathtaking, but his control is as much musical as technical. A truly exciting interpreter, he’s able to make you feel how the total structure of a Beethoven sonata, not just the surface, has an audible power. You may notice small lapses in acuteness of perfectly judged expression – I think very few – but the dynamic life of the music is always there, together with a concern for its character and the achievement and articulation of the larger shapes.

There are pianists who persist in abusing the Waldstein Sonata as a bravura work and I’m so glad he isn’t among them. It is the only one in the canon of 32 in which all three movements begin pianissimo, and the cumulative span of the quiet sections in the outer movements, so difficult to sustain on today’s powerful instruments, creates panoramas that have been likened by Alfred Brendel to sound-spaces unfolding before the musical eye. Beethoven’s pedalling instructions in the finale continue to fox many players, with tonic and dominant harmonies in the ‘mountain’ theme flowing into and out of each other as part of a vision of encompassing high and low, near and far, clear and obscure. The transparent opalescence Bavouzet achieves in the rondo theme is to be savoured and wondered at.

So is the prestissimo coda, at the very end, released as if from a coiled spring and as exciting as I’ve ever encountered it. Bavouzet excels in such inspirations and there are other examples at the close of the G major Sonata, Op 31 No 1, and the Pastoral Sonata, Op 28 – a particularly balletic one, this, thrown off with exceptional grace. By the time you reach such moments you have come to cherish this player’s immaculate rhythm and strict timekeeping, which has nothing to do with swallowing a metronome. Playing a tempo with this degree of élan and finish derives from a discipline that Bavouzet may have learnt to adhere to in his days of studying Ravel with Pierre Sancan at the Paris Conservatoire. Ravel would have loved it while doubtless hating every note of Beethoven.

The three sonatas in the Op 31 group are all successes, the ‘elemental’ D minor (No 2) ranking as a notable addition to its already distinguished discography. Forget the Tempest nickname, attributable to the unreliable Schindler, and follow perhaps Czerny’s supposition that the motion and character of its finale may have derived from a view of horses and riders passing by Beethoven’s window. I saw somewhere recently the E flat Sonata, Op 31 No 3, described as ‘chatty’ and liked that. Bavouzet can do many things and reminds us that Beethoven isn’t always heroic and high-minded. He had a liking for the graceful and elegant, as in this sonata’s Minuet; and there is another example in the B flat Sonata, Op 22, a work which was the composer’s farewell to the 18th century.

I mentioned small lapses in the acuteness of expression. You don’t identify them by comparing Bavouzet to Brendel or to anyone else; he is his own man. But in the first of the Sonatas quasi una fantasia, Op 27 No 1, there is a finger slip at bar 9 (second time round) in the opening section which should not be there in the finished product. And someone was nodding when it came to the English version of the pianist’s contribution to the booklet: the seven crescendos followed by a sudden drop to piano occur not in the ‘single theme of the finale’ of Op 26 but in the theme of the Variations first movement. This became a hallmark, a fingerprint, of Beethoven’s style, and in this early instance of it I have heard other pianists convey the effect better, among them Schiff and Barenboim, and Rudolf Serkin from way back.

‘Tout pour la musique, rien pour le piano.’ A fine French pianist, Yves Nat, little remembered now, said that (and he was very good in Beethoven). In sum, my impressions of Bavouzet are of his selfless concentration, understanding, boundless musical energy, and in everything offered his command of timing and of the glorious variety and drama of these compositions. I retain too a sense that their space and reach have been encompassed.

Review by Stephen Plaistow, Gramophone

The first instalment of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's chronological journey through Beethoven's sonatas, which appeared in 2012, got as far as the end of the 18th century, and the two sonatas of Op 14. Those early works were perfectly suited to the energy and athleticism that are hallmarks of Bavouzet's playing, and to its clean articulation. Though the sonatas in this second set, which run from the B flat major Op 22 to the Waldstein Sonata Op 53, were all composed in the following five years, between 1800 and 1805 (except for the little Op 49 pair, which are earlier but were published in 1805), they open up far wider musical and expressive worlds – for those Bavouzet's approach is not always as revealing as it might be.

At its best, his playing is engaging and fresh; there's never a hint of staleness about even the most familiar music, such as the Moonlight Sonata Op 27 No 2, while in Op 22, Op 26 and Op 28, the least-often heard of the sonatas in this collection, the tightly sprung rhythms and the unfussy phrasing mean that the performances are always dynamic, always focused. But Bavouzet's accounts of the three great works of the Op 31 set and of the Waldstein (to which he also adds the original slow movement, the Andante Favori, as an appendix) are less convincing. All in their different ways need something more than svelte accomplishment; there's a sense of musical and emotional scale in the D minor Sonata Op 31 No 2 that isn't really caught here, while the long-range tensions that are so central to the Waldstein's power don't really get the attention they deserve.

While some might feel increasingly short-changed by these performances, others who admire the polish and assurance of Bavouzet's playing as well as the surface slickness that goes with it, may well enjoy every one of these performances.

Review by Andrew Clements, The Guardian

Here is the concluding instalment – Volume 3 – of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s chronological journey through the 32 Beethoven sonatas, a cycle which may have been matched by one or two but has not been surpassed, I would judge, in the last 30 years. Yes, it’s that good. I greatly enjoyed Volume 2 (3/14) and this is an even higher achievement. But then so is the music.

All the sonatas are here from No 22 in F, Op 54, which is the first of Beethoven’s four solo sonatas of his maturity to be conceived as two-movement works, to the last one of all, No 32 in C minor, Op 111 – which famously foxed its Viennese publisher when it arrived and made him wonder whether a third, final movement had somehow been omitted from the parcel (‘no, I didn’t have time to write one’). I love that story. The differing dualities and oppositions of Nos 24 and 27 (F sharp major, Op 78, and Op 90 in E minor) are also in this collection, so if you want to sample the quality you could make yourself a recital of these four, perhaps, and disappear, with Beethoven, into the silence at the end of Op 111, after the descent from the celestial trilling, where you feel nothing more could possibly be said in the domain of the piano sonata.

Bavouzet, in his prime, has two rare gifts as a Beethoven interpreter. He makes you feel that each sonata is not only all of a piece but that its structure and not just its surface has an audible power. Second, he conveys that what is experienced is indissolubly linked to its execution, both for the composer and for the pianist; the one illuminates the other. Before reflecting on these truths you’ll almost certainly be delighted by Bavouzet’s freshness of spirit, rigorous enquiry, openness to instinct and engagement with every aspect of this inexhaustible music. He radiates generosity and balance as well as a delight in being able to play the piano so well. You are aware of him and of the current that runs through – deriving not from his modesty, because he’s no shrinking violet, but from the force of a personality who knows that without Beethoven and the task in hand he wouldn’t be there. Just as it should be. The composer speaks and you wouldn’t mistake Bavouzet for anyone else.

The frame of sonority, colour and character in which each sonata ‘sits’ is tellingly judged. They are as individual as children. The subtleties of connection between movements in the A flat Sonata, Op 110, for example, emerge from under the player’s control of finger and perceptions of continuity. They don’t need to be flagged up but they occur as a feature in many of the sonatas and can be ruined by insensitive editing. Chandos’s production values here are as good as you would expect. There were three sessions (at Potton Hall) between the end of 2014 and the middle of 2016 but you could play through the set and take pleasure in the sound and imagine it was all set down in the course of a weekend. Bavouzet’s attention to the dynamic life of Beethoven’s sonatas is a model of what it should be: integral to the effect and character of them at any moment, never a decorative add-on. As with his control of tempo and movement, you know exactly where you are: fortissimo is not the same as forte, only perhaps a bit more, and what does a triple piano marking over the last chord of the first movement of the Appassionata Op 57 signify? When did you last hear a recording in which this registered as a degree quieter than pianissimo? Bavouzet wonders whether it’s meant to ensure that this movement, encompassing extreme violence and heart-easing gentleness, should end in complete resignation. He misses nothing and is excellent, also, on the dialectic of sound and silence.

The transparency of his playing brings treasures I would never wish to be without. He uses so little pedal but he is not dry and he can sing like a…well, one of Messiaen’s most eloquent birds, let’s say, and certainly not a French woodpecker! There is vividness even in the intricacies of the fugal finale of the Hammerklavier Sonata, Op 106 (No 29), deliberately written, as Bavouzet points out in his notes, to be extremely difficult to master. You get the feeling, with him, that you are in a rarefied region, not a thorn bush, near the limits of known territory, and yet the air is exhilarating. And what trills! Good to know that such quality is humanly possible. As it is with his execution of the six-octave upward rush in the Scherzo (disc 2, track 8). This is not a Hammerklavier Sonata that has been tamed; it is exciting enough for me. If you prefer a manner that is rougher, more explosive, that chucks fistfuls of notes around the heavens and sets the aspidistras flying, look elsewhere. I like this one because it resounds.

A small reflection: Bavouzet won first prize in the Beethoven International Piano Competition in Cologne in 1986, long before we knew anything about him in this country or had any recordings. He has been biding his time with the cycle of sonatas; no bad thing. Maybe his Haydn series, ongoing I trust, put down a marker for them.

Review by Stephen Plaistow, Gramophone

The meticulous workmanship and musical intelligence informing Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s previous Beethoven cycle installment are equally apparent throughout this third and final volume. In contrast to numerous brisk and suavely dispatched renditions of Op. 54’s toccata-like finale, Bavouzet’s deliberation imparts an almost jazzy inner rhythm to the swirling textures and syncopated accents.

The “Appassionata” first movement stands out for Bavouzet’s firm backbone and stinging clarity. Don’t let the central movement’s genially inflected second variation fool you into thinking that the basic tempo is being markedly modified. By contrast, the finale’s Presto contains a fascinating detail I’ve heard in no other recording: Here Bavouzet makes an unwritten accelerando that enhances the big build leading into the final peroration–a bit theatrical, granted, but the effect works brilliantly.

The disarming lyricism of Op. 78’s first movement is undermined by Bavouzet’s overly intellectualized detailing, while the finale is too sedate for what ought to be a playful and brash vivace. Nor does Bavouzet’s thoughtfully articulated Op. 79 match the offhand joy and animation served up by Kempff or Schnabel, while the “Les Adieux” sonata’s outer movements don’t equal the soaring thrust of Solomon’s classic recording. However, Bavouzet’s Op. 90 is a marvel of textural organization and assiduous transitions.

The crispness and transparency Bavouzet brings to Op. 101’s challenging fugue also informs his tautly unfolding Op. 106 fugal finale. The disparate elements characterizing the introductory Largo leading into the fugue, however, seem disconnected in Bavouzet’s hands. I like Bavouzet’s leanness and poise in the first movement, but I miss the sweeping arcs and nervous energy that others bring to the music, as well as the “inspired misprint” A-sharp in the chains of broken fifths and sixths that occur just before the recapitulation (Bavouzet plays the “corrected” A-natural favored by Kempff and Brendel). The Scherzo’s minor-key Trio section is too square for the rhythmic asymmetry to register, and Bavouzet’s big ritard when the main theme momentarily appears in B minor makes Beethoven’s intended surprise all too obvious. The pianist saves his most emotionally engaging work for a fluid, warm-toned Adagio.

Bavouzet’s graceful and poetic Op. 109 first movement dovetails right into the Prestissimo, where the pianist uncommonly differentiates detached and sustained phrase markings in the manner of Charles Rosen, Annie Fischer, and Freddy Kempf. The third-movement variations cohere by way of Bavouzet’s carefully unified tempo relationships, a virtue that also pertains to Op. 110’s finale.

You’ll also notice the point and precision on the bass trills leading from Op. 111’s Maestoso introduction into the Allegro proper, plus Bavouzet’s sophisticated shaping of the rapid unison lines. The Arietta theme is brisk but sensitively phrased, while a strong left hand presence provides an anchoring counterpart to the long chains of trills toward the movement’s end. It’s not an epic Op. 111 on the level of Pollini’s Apollonian reserve or Arrau’s expansive canvas; still, many pianists would be happy to claim Bavouzet’s authority and mastery. In sum, the best of Bavouzet’s Beethoven interpretations impart a fresh spin on thrice-familiar music without drawing attention away from the composer. That’s no small achievement.

Review by Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com