Mozart/Haydn - Jeunehomme: Alexandre Tharaud

Mozart and Haydn concertos presented with a new twist by the idiosyncratic French pianist.

On this new release, Alexandre Tharaud presents music by Haydn and Mozart composed between 1777 and 1786, including a Mozart masterpiece - the Piano Concerto No.9, known as 'Jeunehomme' - which is widely regarded as one of the composer's greatest. 

But in an innovative twist, Tharaud has written his own cadenza for Mozart's Rondo in A, using themes from 'Jeunehomme', as well as for the Haydn concerto in which he employs motifs from Mozart’s famous Rondo 'Alla Turca' to give an Eastern flavour to the work that seizes on the spirit of its final-movement 'Hungarian rondo'. 

Also on the album, Tharaud reunites with the award-winning French-Canadian chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy under the baton of their music director Bernard Labadie, and the outstanding mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato for the unusual operatic-style of Mozart’s concert aria 'Ch'io mi scordi di te?'

Tharaud plays with an elegance and lightness of touch which draws out the sublime, effortless lightness of these masterpieces.