After demonstrating their ‘innate love and understanding of Haydn’s music in performances of the expected vivacity and insight’ (BBC Music), Bavouzet and Takacs-Nagy, the latter conducting his Manchester Camerata, now explore Mozart’s extraordinary prolific year 1784 in this new series. Two of the six concertos that year are heard here, each unusual for having been written by Mozart for another pianist and for featuring a central Andante, instead of the more common Adagio. This is a unique version that, as Bavouzet stresses in his booklet note, ‘although played unequivocally on modern instruments, contrasts with those versions made not so very long ago, which used a large orchestra incorporating sixteen violins and eight double-basses.’ He adds: ‘a versions which also will take into account a number of performing practices current in Mozart’s time, such as the use of a solo quartet to accompany certain well-defined passages in which the piano is predominant. A version which in one way or another aims to link tradition and modernity.’

REVIEWS:

The mantra all performers must repeat over and over again when recording something which is already very well represented on disc is, “what am I bringing to it which is new and distinctive?” For Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the answer in this case is simple. He is bringing to Mozart’s G major Concerto, K453, cadenzas of such startling originality and invention that they flavour the entire disc.

Moving off message and into the realms of Ravel, Stravinsky and near-jazz, Bavouzet’s cadenzas are an astonishing departure from Mozart’s own (which are usefully included on the disc as supplementary tracks) and one which, it might be thought, would stretch credulity beyond reasonable limits. But the amazing thing is, you listen to Mozart and enjoy the lovely quality of the playing as well as Gábor Takács-Nagy’s delightfully personable readings, and find yourself wandering off into Bavouzet’s own fantastic dream-world without even knowing it. Suddenly you are in the chromatic morasses of neo-Classical Stravinsky and wonder how on earth you got there. Next, you find yourself seamlessly transported back into the presence of Mozart and, again, wonder whether the strange aberration you have just experienced is real or imaginary. So beautifully integrated are these extraordinary cadenzas into the performance that their departure from the standard idiom is barely perceptible. Potential stylistic gulfs are bridged so easily that it is difficult to object to the musical chasm which lies between them.

There are two clear opinions. The first is that cadenzas need to maintain the stylistic idiom of the concerto, while the other is that cadenzas originally opened the door for different stylistic viewpoints to emerge. I retain a critic’s impartiality on the matter, but am as near convinced by Bavouzet as can be. These cadenzas not only add a lovely measure of spice and a tantalizing glimpse of the present, but they bring about a freshness and vitality to the concertos which causes us to listen to it as if through new ears.

Beyond the novelty of the cadenzas in the G major Concerto, these performances would be well worth having on disc on their own terms. Gábor Takács-Nagy is a conductor whose approach exudes not just good cheer and a lovely sense of joy in the music, but have an almost spiritually-charged character; to use one of his own favourite words when describing musical optimism, these are moments of pure “alleluya”. Bavouzet is in total accord with this approach, and the fluency and elegance of this playing is the perfect match to the Manchester Camerata’s witty and at times effervescent playing.

With a fine recorded sound, this is a recording of two popular Mozart concertos which should be in everyone’s possession.

-- MusicWeb International