In 1986, the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who left his homeland 61 years ago, announced that he would return to the Soviet Union for the first time since 1925 to give recitals in Moscow and Leningrad. This sensational historic recital from Moscow includes works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, whom Horowitz knew both, Domenico Scarlatti, W.A. Mozart, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann and Moritz Moszkowski. The disc too contains additional documentary footage with Horowitz. “Horowitz, playing with a clarity and dynamic range that friends said he had not matched in many years“ (New York Times) made an outstanding performance of musical, as well as political, significance.

This is pianist Nelson Goerner’s twelfth recording for the Alpha Classics label. He devotes his new album to the solo piano works of Franz Liszt, with the famous Sonata in B minor as the centrepiece, nearly twenty years after his first CD of the sonata, he felt the urge to re-record it, following a series of critically acclaimed concerts. His talents as a storyteller and as a virtuoso with an eye for nuance are heard to marvellous effect in this monumental work, a veritable ‘musical action’ that undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon of the finest literature for piano. The programme is completed by excerpts from Liszt’s major cycles, including the Petrarch Sonnets from the Années de pèlerinage and the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, along with the spectacular concert étude La leggierezza.

REVIEWS:

Nelson Goerner made an excellent studio recording of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor that the Cascavelle label first released in 2007. This live all-Liszt recital from 2023 also features the Sonata. Although it benefits from fuller-bodied engineering, the interpretation offers surprisingly little change in regard to overall design, substance, and execution. Goerner’s tempo relationships remain judicious and unified, while themes are characterized with subtle yet telling contrast.

Forced to choose, I’d favor Goerner’s diversified voicings and greater dynamic projection in the remake’s Andante sostenuto. On the other hand, the earlier Allegro Energico fughetta gathers greater spontaneous momentum, followed by a more incisive yet less grand recapitulation. One could argue that there are fewer distinctly individual touches here in comparison with recent reference-worthy interpretations by Marc-André Hamelin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Joseph Moog, or Giovanni Bertolazzi. Yet that hardly matters, given Goerner’s intelligent mastery and total identification with the score.

If anything, Goerner’s readings of Liszt’s three Petrarca Sonetti offer even more fervent and poetic melodic projection, together with mellifluous legato chord voicings and prominent bass lines. If no one alive plays La Leggierzza with the feathery aplomb of Benno Moiseiwitsch’s unrivaled 1941 HMV recording, Goerner’s impassioned mobility comes pretty darn close to that paradigm, although he never plays softly enough when required.

Lightness and insouciance, however abound in the Valse oubliée No. 2. Goerner takes his sweet time over the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6’s introduction, milking the music’s bardic implications without lapsing into vulgarity. Most pianists understandably treat the friska section as a high-wire right hand octave etude: think Horowitz, Cziffra, and Argerich. Goerner nails the notes, of course, yet presents both hands as equal partners, letting you hear a piano composition instead of a piano competition. I have no hesitation recommending such a satisfying and well-rounded Liszt program.

-- MusicWeb International (Jed Distler)

The organ played a relatively large part in Franz Liszt’s oeuvre, and there are dual organ and piano versions of a number of his works, but some of the pieces specifically intended for piano also translate well to the organ.

This album consists of four organ transcriptions of such piano works. It begins with a wedding (Sposalizio) and ends with a funeral procession (La lugubre gondola), both life moments often associated with church and therefore with the organ, and Liszt employs a church-bell motive in them. In the Sposalizio, as well as in the Adagio (Consolation in D flat) that follows on this programme, there is a typical 19th-century musical religiosity that was also very characteristic of Liszt. His monumental Sonata in B minor is then succeeded by La lugubre gondola, a dark epilogue once again emphasising Liszt’s musical progressiveness and emotional depth.

The heart of this album is the Sonata in B minor in a new transcription. Although it has already been transcribed for organ, the present transcription is specifically intended for the 18th- or 19th-century Dutch metropolitan type of organ, an outstanding example of which is the main organ at the Domkerk (St. Martin’s Cathedral), Utrecht. There is even a historical link between this particular instrument and Liszt’s organ repertoire. In the summer of 1856, Liszt’s student Alexander Winterberger (1834–1914) undertook a tour of the Netherlands, including a performance at the Utrecht Domkerk, which was positively received by the press, with Liszt, too, enthusiastic.

Pianist Francesco Piemontesi presents Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes and Sonata in B Minor, two of the highest mountains to climb within the piano repertoire. The metaphor of climbing a mountain not only applies to the technical demands placed on the player, but also to the sublime nature of these works: colourful, poetic, lyrical, and bold in their construction. Piemontesi has taken his time before embarking on this epic journey, and the recording documents how his interpretation of these legendary works has matured over time.

Unique to this album are the liner notes, written by Nike Wagner, the great-great-granddaughter of Liszt. Francesco Piemontesi is among the most-cherished pianists of our age, and presents the fourth fruit of his exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, having released the acclaimed Schubert – Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021) and Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Jonathan Nott (2022).

REVIEW:

It’s been worth the wait. Each piece reflects absolute clarity of intention, even in the case of the longest and most episodic one, ‘Ricordanza’. Piemontesi has a rare ability to let us hear the individual notes in a rapid fortissimo wash of sound, and his variations of touch give free rein to the poetry. ‘Harmonies du soir’ opens with a silky touch, and builds to a majestic climax before dying back to a faint echo of itself. The lyrical ‘Paysage’, too, opens sotto voce, but as the sound palette becomes richer, one has the feeling of watching a series of receding landscapes, as in a Chinese scroll painting. ‘Wilde Jagd’ hurtles headlong, ‘Feux follets’ is gorgeously shaded and the virtuosity of ‘Allegro agitato molto’ is magnificent.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Consolations is Saskia Giorgini’s second Liszt album, after her critically-acclaimed rendition of the composer’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Named after Liszt’s six Consolations, the album also contains the Caprices-Valses, Valse Impromptu, Légendes and the world-famous Liebesträume. These introspective pieces shed light on love in all its forms and manifestations, showing us human nature in all its different aspects, as well as a different side of Liszt’s colourful musical persona. Saskia Giorgini is one of the most promising pianists of her generation, has won several competitions and is hailed for her technical command and the beauty and poetry of her sound. Her recording of Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses received a Diapason d’or, while BBC Music Magazine praised her “formidable technical ability, matched by the architectural sense, harmonic sensibility and coloristic range”, and Gramophone lauded her “masterful authority”. She also released Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin (2020) and Respighi Songs (2021) – both with Ian Bostridge – on Pentatone.

The eminent Martha Argerich is one of the most loved and admired classical pianists of all time. She quickly gained and maintained world-wide reputation for her exciting performances. This set is the 11th volume of DOREMI's special series of live performances and broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Martha Argerich. Most items are first release ever. The performances here are live recordings from her Venice recital in February 1969, and from her Cologne broadcast in September 1960.

The eminent Martha Argerich is one of the most loved and admired classical pianists of all time. She quickly gained and maintained world-wide reputation for her exciting performances. This set is the 7th volume in DOREMI’s special series of live performances and broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Martha Argerich. This volume features works by Prokofiev, Robert Schumann, Chopin, Bach, Liszt, and Ravel, all recorded live during the second half of the 1960s. Each of these recordings is receiving here its first ever release.

When Franz Liszt took over the court orchestra in Weimar in 1848, people there lived on the memory of Goethe, who had previously directed the court theatre. Liszt is the direct heir to this renowned stage - but as a musician. With his Faust Symphony, which was premiered on the same day as the dedication of the Goethe and Schiller monument in front of the theatre, psychology makes its way into music; Liszt's ambition was the renewal of music through its more intimate connection with poetry"". The Faust Symphony demonstrates the power of sound, of tone painting, to evoke a fantastic, epic and psychological world. Each movement corresponds to a character whose character and psychology it depicts. This is programme music, but it does not tell a story and is certainly not descriptive music. Liszt describes the profound nature of the characters musically, offering a subtle and analytical interpretation of the story of Faust as told by Goethe. The three character pictures are sonorous psychological tableaux in which Liszt does not simply tell the story of the characters or describe their feelings: He evokes their psyches. Kirill Karabits leads the Staatskapelle Weimar in this repertoire that so defines them."

Composers are often tasked with creating from a void, an emptiness. The blank page is an easel. The parts of a structure of a piece of music – melody, accompaniment, line, harmony, tension, and release – must take shape to reach the listener’s ear. Sometimes, instead of starting with an empty sheet of staff paper, a composer creates something which is pollinated by another source. Perhaps it is a folk song, a poem, a melody, or an even larger work, such as a full-length opera. New works are then realized. In the case of this two-cd set, an East South African folk tune receives new life as a romantic piano ballade. A sonnet of Petrarch resurfaces centuries later as a dramatic declaration of love, through a solo piano work. The repertoire on these discs traces Kristin Ditlow’s own growth as a pianist and musician. Each work marks a chapter of her development and artistry to the present. The song transcriptions are pieces that have been played countless times with vocal partners: the operatic works are works that she has coached or conducted. Her passionate pursuit of travel is also a thread which weaves throughout the discs: the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor spiritual arrangements are works that she became acquainted with as a high school choral accompanist: meeting her husband while on tour in China in 2012: the Mongolian Shepherd Song is her arrangement of a traditional folksong from the Chinese Mongolian community, a work introduced to her by her husband in China originally for erhu and pipa (traditional Chinese instruments) accompaniment but transcribed for violin and piano. Kristin Ditlow has spent five summers performing, teaching, and coaching in Hungary and the Bartók selections all harken back to those times in the Hungarian countryside. Pianist, coach and conductor Dr. Kristin Ditlow dedicates her musical career to collaboration and connection. She has been seen in concert throughout North America, Mainland China, and Western Europe as a soloist, collaborative pianist, and conductor. The set of music pieces in this album is representative of her “Passages” in her career.