Jeunehomme

Mozart • Haydn
Jeunehomme

Alexandre Tharaud
Joyce DiDonato
Les Violons du Roy | Bernard Labadie

Alexandre Tharaud returns with an album of music by Haydn and Mozart composed between 1777 and 1786, including the latter’s masterpiece the Piano Concerto No.9 ‘Jeunehomme’ widely regarded as one of his greatest contributions to the genre. The piano works are elegantly woven together: while Tharaud performs Mozart’s cadenzas in the Piano Concerto No.9, the pianist has written his own for the Rondo in A – employing themes from ‘Jeunehomme’ – as well as for the Haydn concerto in which he uses motifs from Mozart’s famous Rondo ‘Alla Turca’ to give a truly Eastern European flavour to the work that seizes on the spirit of its final-movement Rondo all’Ungherese. The album sees Tharaud reunite with old friends: the award-winning French-Canadian chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy under the baton of their music director Bernard Labadie, and the outstanding mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in Mozart’s concert aria ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te?’.

Track Listing

01 Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major, K. 271, ‘Jeunehomme’: I. Allegro  – Alexandre Tharaud
02 Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major, K. 271, ‘Jeunehomme’: II. Andantino  – Alexandre Tharaud
03 Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat Major, K. 271, ‘Jeunehomme’: III. Rondo (Presto). Alla breve  – Alexandre Tharaud
04 Rondo in A Major, K. 386  – Alexandre Tharaud
05 Ch’io mi scordi di te?… Non temer, amato bene, K. 505  – Alexandre Tharaud & Joyce DiDonato
06 Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major, Hob. XVIII:11 1: I. Vivace  – Alexandre Tharaud
07 Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major, Hob. XVIII:11 1: II. Un poco adagio  – Alexandre Tharaud
08 Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major, Hob. XVIII:11 1: III. Rondo all’Ungarese  – Alexandre Tharaud

Reviews

The centrepiece of this exhilarating disc, themed loosely around music by Haydn and Mozart written between 1777 and 1786, is the latter’s Piano Concerto No 9 in E flat K271, known as the “Jeunehomme”, a play on the name of the original pianist, Victoire Jenamy, for whom it was written. The song-like quality of the slow movement prompted Alexandre Tharaud to programme the concert aria Ch’io mi scordi di te? alongside it, gratefully and gracefully sung by Joyce DiDonato. – The Guardian