Theodore Paraskivesco Haydn Sonate en Eb Variations

For his first disc, Bobby Mitchell, ‘Alpha winner’ of the legendary Bruges Competition, proposes a programme devoted to Joseph Haydn. His interpretation, juvenile yet based on solid musicological research, lets us rediscover all of Haydn’s humour as well as the depth of his feelings. It also reveals an unusual musical personality and an absolutely remarkable pianist.

Par son altière magnificence, la "Sonate en si mineur" brille au firmament de la littérature romantique pour le piano. Le manuscrit porte la mention « Grande Sonate pour le piano forte, F. Liszt, terminé le 2 février 1853 », en écho à la "Grosse Sonate für das Hammerklavier" de Beethoven. En 1854, l'édition est dédiée « An Robert Schumann » qui, quinze ans auparavant, avait adressé à Liszt sa "Fantaisie op.17". Le « pianiste roi » acclamé dans toute l'Europe occupe désormais les sérieuses fonctions de Kapellmeister à Weimar — petite ville de Thuringe encore emplie du souvenir de Goethe - car le moment est venu pour lui de « briser sa chrysalide de virtuosité pour laisser plein vol à sa pensée ».

On this 2009 CD, the scholar-pianist Paul Badura-Skoda (b. 1927) offers an inspired performance of Haydn's keyboard music. Badura-Skoda plays his own rare fortepiano dating from around 1790 built by a maker, Johann Schantz, whom Haydn praised highly. The instrument has a lighter, clearer tone than the contemporary piano. It is bell-like and somewhat dry with a detached sound. In these performances, Badura-Skoda plays with a light, quick touch with sparing use of the pedal and less emphasis on legato playing than would be offered in more contemporary readings. He also plays with a great deal of musicality and passion.

Catherine Perrin's Ah! Vous dirai-je maman is a recital to show off the sound of a 1772 Jakob and Abraham Kirckman harpsichord, a dual-manual instrument with a pedal mechanism that allows the performer to switch from loud to soft stops quickly. She chose pieces that are contemporaneous with the instrument, which are almost always performed either on a fortepiano or modern piano, but they don't sound out of place on this harpsichord, just different. It has a light, elegant sound, not thickly metallic, and gives a lighter character to the music. Being a harpsichordist and not someone who has first learned these works on the piano, Perrin doesn't try to force anything out of the instrument that it can't produce.

Sometimes art is so simple and relaxed it seems to come from a place of utter mastery and command. This superb Sviatoslav Richter recording is like this. The presentation is easeful; there’s nothing forced. Richter just plays the music. These sonatas are reasonably easy for a pianist of his caliber, so the technical polish is perfect, which he makes sound effortlessly achieved. And Richter’s love for these Josef Haydn sonatas shows clearly. It results in a disc that is easily the best set of Haydn piano music in my collection.