Mozart - Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

Mozart - Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

CHAN 20192 (Chandos Records, CD)

FIRST RELEASE (17 February 2023)

Playing time: 67'30"
Tracks: 7
Booklet pages: 44
℗ 2023 Chandos Records Ltd
© 2023 Chandos Records Ltd
Main country of recording: United Kingdom
Reviewer: Gerald Fenech
Review of Mozart - Jean-Efflam Bavouzet published on 19 April 2023

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano (tracks 2-7)
Manchester Camerata
Caroline Pether, leader
Gábor Takács-Nagy, conductor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):

1 Overture to 'Le nozze di Figaro', K 492 (1786)

Piano Concerto No 24, K 491 (1786) in C minor (with cadenzas by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, lightly adjusted by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet)
2 Allegro – Cadenza – [Tempo I]
3 Larghetto
4 Allegretto – Cadenza – [Tempo I]

Piano Concerto No 25, K 503 (1786) in C major (with cadenza by Kenneth Broberg)
5 Allegro maestoso – Cadenza – [Tempo I]
6 Andante
7 Allegretto

Volume 7 of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's Mozart piano concertos survey with Gábor Takács-Nagy and the Manchester Camerata features two of the late concertos - Nos 24 and 25 - along with a spirited reading of the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). Concerto No 24 was written whilst Mozart was busily composing Le nozze di Figaro, between October 1785 and the premiere, in Vienna, in May 1786. One of only two piano concertos in a minor key, this extraordinary work possesses many unusual features, including the deliberately ambivalent tonality of the opening melody, which uses all twelve tones of the scale (a pre-echo of serialism??!). Concerto No 25 was probably first performed, in Vienna, in December 1786, and was certainly a success as there were many repeat performances in the following years (probably including one by Beethoven, in 1795). The disc was recorded in Manchester's Stoller Hall, Bavouzet playing a Yamaha CFX nine-foot Concert Grand Piano.

Recorded 27 and 28 March 2022 at the Stoller Hall, Hunts Bank, Manchester, UK.