There’s little to criticize about Alain Planès’ solid and stylish Haydn, notably in the lyric simplicity and songful phrasing the pianist brings to the slow movements. But there’s also little that will cause you to dash down to your friendly neighborhood record store and snap up this disc. For starters, the engineering has a harsh, glassy, top-heavy quality not dissimilar to some of EMI’s less alluring early 1980s digital piano specimens such as Weissenberg’s Bach Goldberg Variations and Aldo Ciccolini’s Satie remakes; its lack of roundness and warmth begets monochrome, monotonous results. Planès also is part of the problem, since other pianists bring more varied articulation, rhythmic verve, and witty timing to these scores. For example, the lightness and imagination characterizing Vladimir Horowitz’s wonderful live 1966 Carnegie Hall Haydn F major sonata makes Planès sound prosaic and dutiful by comparison. You can make similar observations between Planès’ dependable traversal of the C major Fantasy and András Schiff’s more sophisticated voicings and greater dramatic contrasts. Harmonia Mundi’s annotations are typically excellent, but Miquel Barcelò’s Aquarelle (a painting of a donkey holding flowers) makes for a rather incongruous booklet cover illustration.
