What if Mozart, the most beloved composer of all time, 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 this time diving 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 the sonata, the symphony, the string quartet, the concerto, sacred music, and opera.A first-rate jazzman, Thomas Enhco is also an accomplished classical soloist, regularly invited by symphony orchestras around the world to perform the concertos of Mozart, Ravel, and Gershwin.In 2022, his improvisation on the "Lacrimosa" from the famous Requiem made an impression and gave the starting point for this solo piano project full of surprises, which revisits themes cherished by all, in a modern, intimate way, full of the passion and freshness characteristic of the most beloved of composers.Thomas Enhco sums up Mozart Paradox thus:"Mozart has been with 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 have had the opportunity to perform in concert in recent years. Yet, as a jazz musician, I had never before drawn from his work to improvise, 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 was wrong; I doubted more and more as the takes piled up; we then decided to invite about ten people to attend a private concert in the studio, two evenings in a row. It was much more natural for me to play this spontaneous music for a live audience, and what is recorded 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."
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