F.F. Guy's Beethoven disc awarded the Outstanding accolade in IRR

Beethoven
Piano Concertos – No. 2 in B flat, Op. 19; No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37.
François-Frédéric Guy (piano); Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Philippe Jordan
Naïve V5179

Writing about François-Frédéric Guy’s recording of the Fourth Concerto should be his completion of a cycle of the composer’s piano concertos.’ This release marks that completion and is every bit as distinguished as its two predecessors, the first in the series reviewed in May 2008.
This account of the Third Concerto makes a particularly interesting case for the piece. It has often been suggested that Beethoven was influenced here by Mozart’s K491 Concerto in the came key, a work about which Beethoven is alleged to have said, ‘The world will never hear the likes of it again.’ He was right: it has never been matched in its opening 12-tone chromaticism, not by Beethoven or anyone else prior to the advent of atonality. Yet where Mozart’s concerto is wondrous in its hauntingly eerie ethos, Beethoven’s is grimly assertive, at least in its opening movement, which Guy and Philippe Jordan project with a comparatively broad tempo, closer to that favoured by Schiff than to that employed by Schnabel and Fleisher, who, for many, remain paradigms in this repertory.
That said, Guy’s approach is equally commanding: stark, intense and complemented by orchestral detail often blurred in other readings, the winds, in particular, are especially well focused; so, too, are the timpani, where what sounds like the use of ‘hard’ sticks lends impact to several passages. The finale is also a bit more expansive than usual but never to a point that neutralizes the playful with hiding behind its C minor mask. The Largo, arguably the high point of the work, if not quite as broadly sustained as with Schnabel and Fleisher, is gorgeous. Indeed, the whole work emerges here with a power, intensity and clarity that make hearing it a pointed and refreshingly new experience.
If the same cannot be said for Guy’s fine account of the B flat Concerto it is simply because the score makes fewer demands, its perky humour hard to spoil. It has, though, other traits that are often elided or missed in competing performances, notably a gentle tenderness that is as much a part of Beethoven’s artistic character as the explosive brashness we take for granted. In passages of the first movement Guy brings this out with the slightest modulation of pulse. Similarly, in the coda of the Adagio, his slight ritardando lends the music a magical caress. With a playful finale that is never pushed too hard, this performance can hold its own with the best.
In both works Guy favours Beethoven’s most familiar cadenzas. Throughout, the sound is exemplary, the piano close but never masking the orchestra, the dynamic range lending the latter particularly welcome impact in loud passages. In short, this is a most welcome release, complementing an especially noteworthy cycle of these war-horses.

Mortimer H. Frank