It’s easy to understand why critics have favorably responded to Kristian Bezuidenhout’s Mozart playing: He’s a flawless technician and a musician of great finesse, who appears to carefully calibrate every scale, run, ornament, rolled chord, and dynamic curve. Sometimes the results sound studied, sectionalized, and a bit predictable, as in his consistent diminuendo in each appearance of the A minor Rondo’s main theme, or the underlined change of color in transitional passages throughout both sonatas’ outer movements. By contrast, Andreas Staier makes more of the C minor first movement’s angst and drama by virtue of a faster, steadier basic tempo and more propulsive bass lines, although Bezuidenhout gauges the C minor finale’s recitative-like sequences with impeccable timing. Similarly, Ronald Brautigam’s more vocally oriented inflections of phrase and involving dynamic interaction between hands lends greater interest to the Rondo.
However, Bezuidenhout’s inventive and witty embellishments on repeats are second to none, and his brisk, ebullient shaping of the D major Rondo positively delights. And Bezuidenhout’s lyrical side appreciably opens up when he employs the soft pedal on his Paul McNulty fortepiano (modeled after an Anton Walter & Sohn 1802 Viennese instrument), as you hear in the K. 540 Adagio’s D major theme. It’s clear that Bezuidenhout is a Mozartean for whom ideation and execution are one and the same, and it will be interesting to follow this complete Mozart keyboard music cycle as it progresses.