Paul Lewis certainly knows how he wants these four Haydn sonatas to go. His large-scaled interpretations abound with sophisticated degrees of nuance, inflection, and dynamic scaling. You hear this in the characterful contrasts he conveys between the two themes of the E-flat sonata Allegro’s exposition, along with his splendid contrapuntal balancing in the recapitulation. Lewis may not serve up the G major Presto finale to Marc-André Hamelin’s briskly dry-point and brash effect, yet his slower tempo allows more room for Haydn’s humorous touches to breathe and sink in; in other words, Lewis is Jack Benny to Hamelin’s Groucho Marx. Conversely, Hamelin’s awesomely supple articulation throughout the C major sonata Allegro has the upper hand in relation to Lewis’ slightly heavier gait.
Lewis also uses more pedal in slow movements, suggesting more of a chamber orchestra than the finely calibrated string quartet that Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Haydn pianism evokes. One revealing comparison involves the B minor sonata’s central movement. Here, the breadth of Lewis’ phrasing within the parameters of an expansive tempo transforms Haydn’s Menuet into an introspective aria. By contrast, Emanuel Ax is twice as fast, with sharper delineation that restores the music’s internal lilt, and, consequently, its true Menuet status. One might also consider Lewis’ observation of second-half repeats in the E-flat and C major first movements too much of a good thing. Although my tastes in Haydn lean more toward the incisiveness and expressive economy of Bavouzet, Hamelin, Ax, and fortepianist Ronald Brautigam, the validity and integrity of Lewis’ conceptions are never in question.
