THOMAS ENHCO - Mozart Paradox | CD

What if Mozart, the most beloved composer of all, came back to life today? After his explorations of the repertoires of Bach, Schumann, and Brahms, Thomas Enhco continues to build bridges between jazz and classical music by delving this time into the immense work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as part of an album titled "Mozart Paradox." On solo piano, he improvises with total freedom on the eternal themes that Mozart offered in genres as varied as sonata, symphony, string quartet, concerto, sacred music, and opera. A jazzman of the highest order, Thomas Enhco is also an accomplished classical soloist, regularly invited by symphony orchestras worldwide to perform concertos by Mozart, Ravel, and Gershwin. In 2022, his improvisation on the "Lacrimosa" from the famous Requiem made a lasting impression and sparked this solo piano project full of surprises, which revisits beloved themes in a modern, intimate way, brimming with the passion and freshness characteristic of the most cherished of composers. Thomas Enhco summarizes Mozart Paradox as follows: "Mozart has accompanied me since childhood. I heard my mother sing his opera arias and my grandfather conduct his symphonies. On the violin (my first instrument) I worked on sonatas, concertos, and duets; on the piano, fantasies, chamber music, and concertos, some of which I had the opportunity to play in concert in recent years. Yet, as a jazz musician, I had never before drawn on his work for improvisation, as I have done with Bach, Brahms, or Schumann. Last September, I went into the studio for three days and started recording improvisations, but something wasn't right; I doubted more and more as the takes accumulated; we then decided to invite about ten people to attend a private concert in the studio, two nights in a row. It was much more natural for me to play this spontaneous music for a live audience, and what is etched on this album largely comes from these two concerts. This album is, for me, totally jazz in its essence (improvisation, rhythms, harmonies, the way of varying around a theme as in the tradition of jazz standards). Moreover, it is a solo piano album, without any other instrument or effect, but which attempts to summon, as in all of Mozart's music, opera singers and theatrical characters."