His recordings and concert performances have long established Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. This latest album - the tenth - in his cycle of the complete Haydn Sonatas is built around the Grand Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI:50, a late work the first movement of which is one of the most highly developed that Haydn ever conceived for the keyboard.
Bavouzet has surrounded this with less well-known works: two very early sonatas (No. 3 and No. 4) provide a stark contrast to the later works (No. 28 and No. 45). The album ends with the Arietta con 12 Variazioni.
Bavouzet notes: "The Variations in E-flat major and the Sonata in A major, Hob. XVI:30 were for me the marvellous revelations of this programme. In the E-flat major Variations (the lovely theme of which Mozart borrowed in his Sonata, K. 282!), the chief question was to decide whether to repeat the theme at the end, as certain editions recommend. After several experiments, I finally opted for a solution perhaps a little anachronistic, by construing the entire last variation as a long, gradual crescendo which takes us from the sombre and serious atmosphere of the preceding variation towards the brilliant light of the unadorned chords that conclude this magnificent cycle". © Chandos