I've liked many things from pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and I credit this series with helping me get to know Haydn's sonatas... and this release is getting good reviews... but I find myself annoyed by this album. Maybe it's partly the music — few of these particular sonatas grab me — but even when they do I feel like something's missing from the playing, like warmth and whimsy that I expect in Haydn, almost like the pianist was having a disconnected day in the studio, or that he was being deliberately 'mature'. Bavouzet does have a tendency toward a non-pedaled, pebbly-sounding accompaniment that works when it works, but here he's playing on a modern piano, and not a particularly characterful one (a Yamaha...). Anyway, the discovery on this album for me is sonata #34, with its quirky twists and bendy harmony, and its beautiful slow movement.

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