Bavouzet Beethoven Connection

In the 250th Beethoven anniversary year, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has chosen this programme of works by contemporary composers to illuminate and contextualise Beethoven’s extraordinary output for piano.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s landmark series of Beethoven’s complete sonatas. Bavouzet has taken this programme to the most prestigious venues around the world and continues to perform it. Gramophone has nominated him several times for its Artist of the Year award, arguing that "Bavouzet’s chronological journey through the Beethoven sonatas has not been surpassed in the last 30 years. Yes, it’s that good."

In the 250th Beethoven anniversary year, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has chosen this programme of works by contemporary composers to illuminate and contextualise Beethoven’s extraordinary output for piano. In his explanatory note for the album, the pianist writes: ‘Just as a mountain peak is always surrounded by other perhaps less lofty but no less fascinating summits, the major works of Beethoven are not isolated rock formations rising from the desert, but, as it were, “Himalayas”, forming part of a range in which other mountains might be the best pieces by contemporaries such as Clementi, Hummel, Dussek, and Wölfl.