Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performer: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
Orchestra: Manchester Camerata
Conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Catalogue: CHAN20246
Release: 2023
Size: 1.23 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Così fan tutte, K588: Overture
02. Die Zauberflöte, K620: Overture
03. La clemenza di Tito, K621: Overture
Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major, K537 ‘Coronation’
04. I. Allegro
05. II. [Romance] Larghetto
06. III. Alegretto
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K595
07. I. Allegro
08. II. Larghetto
09. III. Allegro
Volume 8 of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s survey of Mozart’s piano concertos with Gabor Takacs-Nagy and Manchester Camerata features two late concertos – Nos 26 and 27 – along with the overtures to Cosi fan tutte, Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute), and La clemenza di Tito. Concerto No. 26, the ‘Coronation’, was completed in 1788, premiered in Dresden, and then played at the coronation of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor, in Frankfurt, on 15 October 1790. As Mozart did not prepare the score for publication, large sections of the left hand were left blank in the manuscript score. It’s not known who created the part for the first printed edition, although this has been widely accepted ever since. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has created his own version for this recording. Mozart premiered his final piano concerto, No. 27, in Vienna on 4 March 1791, in his last public performance. The album was recorded in Manchester’s Stoller Hall, Bavouzet playing a Yamaha CFX nine-foot Concert Grand Piano.
With this 2023 release, the cycle of Mozart’s mature piano concertos by pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, with the Manchester Camerata under conductor Gabor Takács-Nagy, reaches its end. The series, with a modern piano but an economical approach that shows some influence from the historical performance movement, has found both critical and popular success, and this finale will not disappoint. Bavouzet is a technically clean pianist who can impress with the elegance of any given phrase, but what strikes the listener considering his Mozart work as a whole is the way he approaches each piece as an individual. His Mozart is entirely different from his Haydn, as revealed in a long series of fine piano sonata recordings, and he is very sensitive to the development of Mozart’s style, capturing subtle interaction between piano and winds in the big middle-period concertos and backing off to a simpler melodicism in these late ones. In the Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major, K. 537 (“Coronation”), he prepares his own version of the incompletely notated left-hand part, and he adds some light ornamentation to the rather bare, slow movement. Bavouzet’s Mozart albums have included overtures from the period of the concertos involved, and here, one gets no fewer than three from the last three Mozart operas. Takács-Nagy integrates these with the concertos beautifully, and the program as a whole has a satisfying effect that brings to mind Mozart’s remark about the connoisseurs and the amateurs; the album can be appreciated at multiple levels. Chandos’ engineering work at the Stoller Hall in Manchester is once again exemplary. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.