Bartók: The Piano Concertos

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet certainly likes to avoid any risk of being pigeonholed. After a survey of Debussy's complete piano music, and another devoted to Haydn's sonatas, he turns his attention to Bartók's piano concertos. Both Bavouzet and the BBC Philharmonic with Gianandrea Noseda are outstanding in the First Concerto, capturing its epic scale and mixture of formality and barbarism. They are not always quite as crisp in the Second, while Bavouzet's presentation of the opening theme of the Third is moulded just a bit too artfully. But those are minor criticisms of performances that generally have all the sweep, intensity and precision that these works demand.