Hands up! Who knew that Georges Bizet had made a piano solo arrangement of Mozart’s Don Giovanni? Thought so. My immediate response was ‘why?’ and ‘cui bono?’ Without the words and the dramatic interplay of the different characters, devoid of Mozart’s orchestral texture and colouring, what are we left with? What is an opera without singing?

Well, a number of things. First, remembering that the young Bizet was a virtuoso pianist, this piano solo is a work of art in its own right, resourceful, faithful to the score and spirit of Mozart, and adept in its translation of orchestral effects to the keyboard. Second, it is musicologically most intriguing: written in his late twenties (the score was written for Heugel & C^ie and published by them in 1866), Bizet’s devotion to Don Giovanni is reflected in his most famous work. Carmen not only shares the same location (Seville) but similar eponymous title-roles. The Don and Carmen both exercise their power to manipulate the opposite sex purely for their own pleasure; both are finally entrapped by their deeds and die as a consequence of their actions. Third, Bizet provides a wonderful vehicle for the intrepid pianist.

Such a one is the French-Cypriot Cyprien Katsaris, surely one of the most prolific recording artists of the era, and with a range of recorded repertoire equalled by few of his peers. He is, in any case, a superb Mozart player who, unlike many others (no names, no pack drill), lets Mozart do all the work for him. His limpid, singing tone on Polish Radio’s Bechstein is a joy. A small drawback is having to interrupt the last few minutes of Act 1 by switching to disc 2, but the passages of recitatives excepted (they really do not work on the piano), Katsaris keeps all the balls in the air quite miraculously, always at his best when given plenty to do. The Mozart-Bizet Don Giovanni is a curiosity, one that will never be heard in concert and probably only this once on disc.