Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 50 in D major, Hob.XVI:37

“These performances sound natural, appropriate and in perfect structural and expressive proportion...They are the work of an insightful musician of profound culture and wide interests, whose intellectual and emotional identification with Haydn is unreserved, and whose playing, beautifully captured in technical terms, is a delight to listen to.” International Record Review, April 2011

“In the second volume of his complete Haydn cycle [Bavouzet] shines particularly in sonatas 48 and 50, the sprightliest on the CD, both with lovely reflective slow movements. Bavouzet offers the crispest of trills, a sprinkling of the fantastic, and a tender heart.” The Times, 16th April 2011 ****

“His playing in this second installment is quite as exemplary in touch, phrasing, characterisation and continuity, while the recorded sound is again intimate yet unconstricted...Bavouzet brings a fizzing vivacity to the first movement of Sonata No. 48 in C...And in the solemn neo-baroque central movement of No. 50 in D (c.1778), his control of sonority and voicing of inner parts has a measured grandeur that is quite marvellous.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2011 ****

“Bavouzet is perhaps the ideal pianist for Haydn: his clarity of touch, quickness of wit and sensitivity to different soundworlds make him an empathetic interpreter...[he] makes the most of the contrasts between the pieces...The pianist is very much alive to their unfailingly fresh invention, delivering it all apparently effortlessly and without exceeding the necessary 18th-century parameters on the modern grand piano” Classic FM Magazine, June 2011 ****

“Bavouzet more than holds his own and, time and again, seems to offer a fresh ear to these sonatas, as if this is as much his great adventure as ours.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2011

“…his playing is arguably more ebullient than refined yet it is also exhilaratingly energised and finely attuned to the composer's volte-face mentality.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2007

“Hamelin kicks off with the late C major Sonata, H50, nailing his virtuoso credentials firmly to the mast with a mercurial account of its opening movement. Some may prefer Schiff's more measured approach, but Hamelin's playing is dazzling, and his 'presto' finale is no less witty than Schiff's.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2007 *****

“Hamelin’s gift for making light of complex textures and technically taxing writing is here harnessed to music of Classical clarity and economy. It is without doubt one of his finest achievements—and that’s saying something. This cleverly chosen selection of diverse character is played with masterly resourcefulness. Hamelin can do deadpan humour (the finale of No 40) and brilliant note-spinning (No 32) like few others, but also finds a truly affecting wistfulness in some of the slow movements. Superbly recorded, this is a life-enhancing release” Classic FM Magazine

“The ever-phenomenal Marc-André Hamelin breaks out into the light with a two-disc set of Haydn sonatas … these are astonishing performances … Hyperion’s sound and presentation are, as always, immaculate” Gramophone Magazine

“For long confined to the by-ways of the repertoire, the ever-phenomenal Marc-André Hamelin now breaks out into the light with a twodisc set of Haydn sonatas. And unlike Haydn who considered himself less than a wizard of the keyboard, Hamelin is a prodigious virtuoso. Here, he remains one, in a full if not entirely inclusive sense, often susceptible to Haydn's wit, to vertiginous music which can veer to the right just when you expect it to turn left, and vice versa.
He is brilliantly alert to the first Menuetto from No 43, to a dance at once perky and serious, almost as if the composer with his toy fanfares was trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. And he can be hauntingly limpid and serene, as in the alternately calm and troubled Adagio from No 46. However, in No 23 one longs for Hamelin to relax his virtuoso prowess.
Here, there is an unmistakable sense of hurry, of Haydn's riches glimpsed rather than savoured, of a composer's piquancy nearly bustled out of existence. Others, too, have achieved greater grandeur in the final E flat Sonata or made the storm clouds scud more menacingly across the B minor Sonata's finale (Andsnes, Ax and, most of all, Brendel). None the less, these are astonishing performances. Hyperion's sound and presentation are, as always, immaculate.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This disc offers delectable performances of five shrewdly contrasted works: two troubled, trenchant minor-key sonatas from the 1770s juxtaposed with a pair of lightweight pieces from the same period and culminating in the great E flat Sonata.
Andsnes is responsive to the individual character of these sonatas, to their richness and variety of incident, and their sheer unpredictablility. With his wide spectrum of colour and dynamics he makes no apologies for using a modern Steinway.
But his playing, founded on a pellucid cantabile touch and diamantine passagework, marries classical refinement and clarity with a spontaneous exuberance, a sense that the next phrase is yet to be created. Andsnes is always ready to add stylish and witty touches of embellishment to the repeats. The opening movements of both minorkey sonatas have a lithe, sinewy urgency, above all in the vehement sequences of their developments, together with a rare delicacy of nuance: and here, as elsewhere, you notice how alive and concentrated is his piano and pianissimo playing. Andsnes brings a bright, buoyant yet lyrical approach to the E flat Sonata's outer movements, to the wonderful Adagio a limpid line, a subtly flexed pulse and, in the B flat minor central episode, a true sense of passion. This is just the sort of playing – joyous, imaginative, involving – to win Haydn's sonatas a wider following. The recording of the E flat, made in a church in Oslo, has slightly more ambient warmth than that of the remaining sonatas, recorded at EMI's Abbey Road studios. But throughout, the piano sound is natural and present without being too closely miked.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010