By this point in 2020, music critics and even some listeners may be weary of all the Beethoven releases in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. But the ever-imaginative Jean-Efflam Bavouzet here offers an inspired program of music by four of Beethoven’s contemporaries, offering a window into how piano music of this period sounded. It also allows us to discover how these composers, including Beethoven, may have influenced and learned from one another.
The program begins with a lovely sonata by Joseph Wölfl. A student of Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn, Wölfl rather famously participated in a “piano duel” with Beethoven at the home of Baron Raimund von Wetzlar in March 1799. While both men were judged as almost evenly matched in technique and accuracy, their compositional styles proved to be substantially different. Wölfl’s music revels in technical difficulties that, when fully mastered, bring a pleasant admiration, while Beethoven seeks a new, more overtly emotional style that some found inspiring, and others felt was overwrote. The E-flat sonata heard here clearly shows these qualities: its first movement is an almost constant stream of virtuosic scales and dotted rhythm fanfares, which nevertheless closely adheres to sonata form expectations, with two clearly contrasting themes. The following slow movement is sweetly naïve, while the final sonata-rondo movement brings another opportunity for bravura display, dispatched by Bavouzet with elegance and unbridled enthusiasm.
The Clementi sonata is perhaps the most impressive work, most especially its slow movement. Much of the first movement has an improvisational quality, enhanced by Bavouzet’s subtle use of rubato and varied tonal color. The central slow movement is a strict two-voice canon at the fifth; with its searching and forlorn wanderings (featuring some surprisingly daring harmonic shifts), this music breathes the same emotional air of Beethoven’s slow movements and few of Haydn’ss “Strum und Drang” Sonatas (the slow movement of Hob. 37 comes to mind). Its Finale is all breathless joy, featuring sudden dynamic changes and brilliant passagework for both hands. Bavouzet takes particular care to ensure that these passages are heard with equal clarity and weight between the hands.
Related Classical Music Reviews
- Review: Beethoven – Complete Piano Sonatas – Igor Levit
- Review: Beethoven – The Last Three Sonatas – Pollini (2020)
- Review: Beethoven – Complete Symphonies – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra – Nelsons
Hummel’s “Sonata in F Minor” also receives thoughtful and passionate advocacy. Its composer’s style was substantially different than Beethoven; Carl Czerny describing it as “a model of purity and precision, of the most beguiling elegance, and of delicacy.” These qualities are readily apparent in Bavouzet’s performance – anyone owning his Beethoven sonata cycle will hear how differently he phrases and colors Hummel’s piano writing.
Dussek’s Sonata, entitled “Élégie harmonique sur la mort de son Altesse Royale le prince Louis-Ferdinand de Prusse” (Harmonic Elegy on the death of His Royal Highness Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia), is, in many respects, the most forward-looking music on the album. Only two movements, its music is almost oppressively sad. Yet Bavouzet finds nuances and subtleties that keep the listened constantly engrossed, presenting Dussek’s writing in the best possible light.
The impressively engineered recording is up to Chandos usual standards; the sound of Bavouzet’s Yamaha CFX is beautifully caught, and the instrument’s vibrant and warm color perfectly suits this repertoire. The copious notes on each work by Marc Vignal are a model of their kind, as is the supplemental essay by Bavouzet describing how these sonatas relate to Beethoven’s music. He has also recorded a track of illustrative examples (track 12) that further clarifies the points in his essay – brilliant and passionate scholarship!
The cover says, “Volume 1” and we must hope it will not be too long before we have more volumes to explore – strongly recommended!
“The Beethoven Connection”
Wölfl – Sonata, Op. 33 No. 3
Clementi – Sonata, Op. 50 No. 1
Hummel – Sonata No. 3, Op. 20
Dussek – Sonata, Op. 61, C 211 ‘Élégie harmonique sur la mort de son Altesse Royale le prince Louis-Ferdinand de Prusse’
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – Piano
Chandos, CD CHAN 20128
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