Possessiveness is a Romantic trait, and so is worrying about authorship, and Haydn is paradigmatically Classical, as Bavouzet shows in these immaculate accounts…Bavouzet’s Yamaha enables him to bring ideal clarity to these elegant works, without inviting the dreaded adjective ‘analytic’. Listening to this disc over a period of several weeks, I am astonished each time by the freshness of what I am hearing. Warmly recommended.

The insight is communicated by the fingers of Bavouzet and by his palpable affection for these works. As before, the score is a starting point for him, not holy writ, and he grants himself full liberty to negotiate with Haydn, ornamenting and varying as he goes along, yet never obscuring the music’s purpose or pulling the spotlight away from it and towards himself.

The fragility of Nos 46 and 58 is remarkable, while booklet annotator Marc Vignal’s comment that the influence of Scarlatti can be felt in Sonata No 13 is absolutely identifiable in Bavouzet’s performance. Menuets take on unaccustomed depth in Bavouzet’s hands, while the performance of the profound No 58 is intense. A faultless disc to bring great joy.

The authenticity of many of the works here may be questionable, but Bavouzet treats them with the same charm and affection that’s distinguished this lovely series from the outset in 2010. One thing I especially love is his imaginative approach to the repetition of not just whole sections but even of the shortest phrases and motives; there’s some magical cantabile playing in Partita No. 13, and the counterpoint and cascading triplets in the opening Divertimento come across with beguiling clarity.

Gratifyingly, Bavouzet plays a Yamaha piano in his Haydn series, its silvery clarity suggesting a closer link to the 18th century than might a more conventional choice...Bavouzet gives beguiling interpretations, bringing to the slow movements a touching grace and lovely singing tone, and executing the faster items with personable flair.