Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

"These are landmark recordings [Haydn Piano Sonata cycle], thanks to the French pianist’s stylistic command and sheer delight in the music." (Andrew Clark, Financial Times, April 2013)

“The orchestra were joined by the dazzling French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet for a silvery performance of Debussy’s Fantaisie. Mr. Bavouzet has made a lucid five-disc set of Debussy’s complete solo piano works on the Chandos label; this is clearly a composer close to him, and his playing was adroitly poised between gentle and alert, with a suave sophistication suffused with the spirit of jazz. If Mr. Bavouzet’s fast passagework glitters, his slow movements are extraordinary. The tender melodies of the Fantaisie’s Largo had both clarity and warmth, a public exposure of private melancholy.” (Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times, April 2013)

“Chandos has cleverly collected the individual [Debussy] piano releases by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and put them into a beautiful box set, once and for all cementing the fact that Bavouzet is the best living Debussy interpreter. His big tone and sonorous interpretation is a far cry from the perfumed and limpid Debussy served up by so many lesser-gifted pianists. This is, in the best sense of the word, unfussy and direct piano playing. There might be individual recordings from pianists, mostly from the bygone age, that have their champions, but as a complete set of Debussy, nobody today can touch Bavouzet.” (Pianist, December 2012)

"...the program included Bartók's wonderfully soulful and effervescent Third Piano Concerto, with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet making a powerful Symphony debut as soloist... Bavouzet adopted a dry, sharp-edged approach to the first movement, bringing out the contrasts between piano and orchestra, and leavened the same ideas with extroverted showmanship in the fugal finale. In between came the slow movement, marked "Adagio religioso," in a soulful and long-breathed reading." (San Francisco Chronicle, October 2012)

"Mr. Bavouzet ended with his own astonishing and extremely difficult arrangement of Debussy’s "Jeux.” He preceded his performance with an engaging explanation of the ballet and why he tried to transcribe such a complex orchestral work into a piece for “just 10 fingers.” His fingers served him well in this dazzling performance." (The New York Times, August 2012)

“Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is without doubt one of today’s most intelligent and questing pianists. From Massenet to Ohana, from Stockhausen to Haydn, he seems to excel in all he touches.” (International Piano, September 2012)

"The Bartok transforms, though, when the soloist possesses the astonishing technical mastery and elan of French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet...So fine a pianist is Bavouzet that his one encore, of Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, barely sufficed. Exquisitely formed, this was pianistic eloquence at its most refined.” (The Australian, May 2012)

“This was one of the great performances of the Ravel, taking it into territory way beyond the realm of art deco cool, with which it is primarily associated. That tough streak in Bavouzet's playing brought out levels of harmonic bitterness we don't usually hear... In many respects, this was Bavouzet's concert rather than Ashkenazy's.” (The Guardian, December 2011)

“...with Ashkenazy and the orchestra providing a circumambient glow, Bavouzet achieved an almost Mozartian eloquence; his pianism in the concluding Presto was both electrifying and flawless. Tackling Manuel de Falla’s ‘Noches en los jardines de Espana’ after the interval, he dazzled again...for this flamboyant Frenchman it could mark the beginning of British stardom.” (The Independent, December 2011)

"If, like me, you have been badly missing Alfred Brendel in Haydn since his retirement, let us celebrate a special moment: Volume 3 of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Haydn project establishes him as a worthy successor. And better still, its scope is more ambitious and is going to include many more sonatas than Brendel recorded…. Do please listen to him." (Gramophone, December 2011)

“…the CD’s raison d’être is the Ravel. Bavouzet’s G major concerto is the best since Michelangeli’s 50 years ago: it has style, verve, poetry and balance”  (Financial Times, January 2011)