Next to his horrifically mannered Rameau and Ravel releases, Tzimon Barto’s Haydn comes off comparably normal, although bad taste still prevails in this excellently engineered recital. The pianist fares best in both the G major and F major sonatas’ Presto finales, where his crisp, detached articulation enhances the music’s inherent sparkle and wit. However, more often than not Barto clearly cares more about Barto than Haydn.
Take Sonata No. 50’s Allegro molto finale, where the pianist’s toying with the basic pulse undermines the effect of the composer’s silences, while Barto’s crude pounding out of the unexpected harmonic twists and turns precludes any sense of surprise, let alone humor. Beautiful sounds characterize Barto’s languid, liberally pedaled Adagio, as if pulse and structure were beside the point. The first-movement Allegro’s mincing tempo fluctuations and exaggerated staccato/legato differentiation grow tiresome after five seconds. Similar observations apply to the F major’s first two movements and to the early C major No. 10 Menuet, played in slow motion with its phrases perfumed and tapered in vulgar shades of goo; its four-and-a-half-minute duration seems like four and a half hours. Why does a reputable label like Ondine continue to champion, indeed, enable Barto’s predatory and ultimately uninteresting musicianship?
