Franz Liszt, musical genius and piano titan. When he first came to Prague in 1840, he heard and remembered Josef Theodor Krov's melody "Tešme se blahou nadejí", which was then misinterpreted as an old Hussite song. Franz Liszt, inspired by this song, has written the "Hussiten-Lied". Another Liszt’s composition you will find on this CD that is inspired by Czech/Slavic culture is "Slavimo slavno slaveni!". Naturally, Liszt left an indelible mark among Czech musicians, so you will also find Czech composers on this album.

For her second album with naïve, Zlata Chochieva has chosen a magnificent, audacious program, associating Schumann, Ravel, Liszt and Bartók with the lesser known Draeseke and Schulz-Evler. Sensitive to nature and to the emotions it inspires, the Russian pianist Zlata Chochieva has conceived this very personal album as a patchwork, sometimes inward-looking, landscape with changing skies. “A recorded program is not a concert program, but I also wanted to tell a story, propose a whole tapestry of emotions, open different perspectives,” she confides.

A pair of great Danish pianists and celebrated violinists contribute to a wide-ranging program, which demonstrates Thomas Jensen’s versatility and command of his orchestras in both pillars of the repertoire by Grieg and Tchaikovsky, and a stirring but unfamiliar piano-concerto movement by the Dane August Winding. Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegelis new to the Jensen discography: a stunning live performance from 1952, newly remastered from the original tapes. This collection brings together live DRSO broadcasts from the 1950s and the 1960swith earlier gramophone recordings, made before Jensen’s DRSO tenure when he was principal conductor of the Aarhus Civic Orchestra (documented on Volume 8 of the series.)

Review:

It’s fortunate – and generous – of Danacord to offer their twofers ‘as for one’ as of late they have been engaged in wholesale reshuffling of their packs.

The only previously unissued item in CD1 is August Winding’s Concert Allegro, preformed by Boris Linderud (1915-95) in 1960. This fluid rhapsodic piece is cast in a Schumannesque mould with plenty of right-hand filigree. The only non-studio live performance on CD2 is Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, in a very competent 1952 reading in the characteristic acoustic of Denmark’s Radio Concert Hall. The remainder of the programme is largely given over to the violin repertoire on the Tono label, played by the country’s then leading player, Emil Telmányi, between 1947 and 1951. He plays Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen with plenty of slides but also a sure awareness of style. You will find the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso on DACOCD851 where you’ll also find recordings made by Telmányi’s great teacher, Hubay – the recording Telmányi made of Hubay’s Hejre Kati in that disc is a later one than the 1947 Tono here, which features his Chamber Orchestra and offers a less successful accompaniment.

Svendsen’s Romance is in the secure hands of Carlo Andersen in his famous 1939 HMV recording which must have sold by the bucketload as it always turns up on record lists to this day. It’s a valuable snapshot of Andersen’s playing as he only ever recorded a couple of pieces by Lumbye so far as I’m aware. Finally, there’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812’, spread across four 78 sides, recorded a few days after the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso. Nothing unduly odd happens in the ‘1812’ – strong, decisive conducting and well recorded. Till is newly remastered, and everything comes up sounding good.

--MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

While Liszt’s version of 12 songs from Winterreise is the crowning glory of his Schubert transcriptions, there are surprisingly few recordings of the complete set. Only two are presently available (one on fortepiano), making this new recording by Leonardo Pierdomenico a notable event, and coupled uniquely with two versions of Liszt’s own music.

Leonardo Pierdomenico brings Lisztian virtues to the songs from Winterreise which Liszt selected and arranged according to his own ordering, beginning like the original with ‘Gute Nacht’ but ending with the grim tavern scene of ‘Im Dorfe’. Along the journey, Liszt exercises all his powers of pianistic invention not merely to incorporate the song line within the piano part but to enrich Schubert’s music with his own sympathetic interpretation. In Der Lindenbaum, Liszt he deploys all manner of flourishes to conjure up the tree’s rustling leaves. In a surprising twist, he follows it with the cycle’s otherwordly song evoking Der Leiermann, the hurdy-gurdy man.

The recital’s still central point of reflection is supplied by Liszt’s transcription of Gretchen from his Faust Symphony: a loving but complex portrait of the object of Faust’s affections, a cantabile meditation magnificently sustained over almost 20 minutes. By contrast, Totentanz in its solo-piano version is a feat of pianistic imagination, based on the Dies Irae plainchant, to test the most technically assured performers. Authoritative notes by the pianist and scholar Mark Viner complete a set sure to draw the interest of all Lisztians.

The young Italian pianist has already established himself as a Lisztian of renown and distinction through the Piano Classics album (PCL10151) including the Ballades, Legendes, and Csardas macabre. The album won widespread critical admiration: ‘Would that half the seasoned Lisztians I know had Pierdomenico’s keen ear for stylistic differentiation within this half-century of repertory. His highly developed technique and cultivated sound, both adaptable to a variety of affects, are wedded to those twin essentials for artistic Liszt-playing: imagination combined with thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality.’ (Gramophone, September 2018).

For her first recital, Juliette Journaux evokes the figure of the Wanderer: a wayfarer, a traveller, a man who walks alone, without apparent purpose. He confronts a Nature that is beyond him and his deepest thoughts. The wanderer's drifting is also inseparable from the dream, the acceptance of a dilated time. Musically, one immediately thinks of the worlds of Schubert, Mahler and Wagner... Another aspect of this project is Juliette Journaux's passion for transcription. In tackling the difficult task of transcribing vocal or orchestral works for solo piano, she draws on her knowledge of the orchestra and the operatic voice thanks to her three masters degrees in piano, vocal accompaniment and voice direction from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris... The album opens with Schubert's Lied Der Wanderer in a piano transcription by Liszt, followed by his three Klavierstücke D.946; then comes her transcription of Mahler's last two Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen, full of pain and sorrow. She also evokes Wagner and his opera Siegfried where Wotan becomes the Wanderer. The farewell and renunciation of the world that is the Abschied from Mahler's Song of the Earth concludes the programme.

REVIEWS:

Enhancing the appeal of pianist Juliette Journaux’s first recital is the concept she used to shape its selections into its nearly hour-long form. In using the figure of the wanderer, a nomad walking alone with no apparent goal or destination, as a guide, she’s sequenced works by Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, and Mahler into an epic travelogue. As a result, the Romantic self-questioning and angst of the prototypical wanderer dovetails seamlessly with the inwardly probing character of the material and lends the recording a satisfying arc and design.

Making the project even more special, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris graduate doesn’t simply perform piano works created by others but for the most part plays personalized transcriptions of the material.

Recorded in October 2022 at Cultural Centre Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, Wanderer Without Words includes two pieces by the great Austrian composer, Journaux transcriptions of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” from Rückert-Lieder and “Der Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Augmenting the Mahler selections are a Liszt piano transcription of Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen” (from Siegfried), and other Schubert settings. The journey begins, aptly, with Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” our protagonist setting out in the hope that his journey will bring answers and resolution. As tormented as that traveler is Wagner’s Wotan, whose questions to the all-knowing goddess Erda are met with confounding riddles.

In notes included with the release, Journaux clarifies the difference between reduction and transcription. She says of her Wagner transcription that it’s primarily based on the principle of reduction, “a concentration of all the elements of the orchestral score into two staves that can be played with two hands.” Whereas reduction aims to retain in pianistic form as much as possible of the orchestrated original, transcription, in her view, is a more personal interpretation of the score in that the transcriber might choose to bring greater attention to certain aspects of the work than others. She writes, “When Liszt faithfully adapts a Beethoven symphony for piano, he is making a reduction; when he arranges a Schubert lied for ten fingers with great freedom of writing (arpeggios, octaves, even re-harmonizations), he is making a transcription.”

“Der Wanderer” finds our protagonist embarking on his journey with determination and resolve, his steps guided by the conviction that answers to his questions will materialize and allowing himself moments of rapture as he confidently makes his way. That alternately serene and dramatic statement’s followed by Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen,” it similarly oscillating between episodes of tenderness and violence. The focus returns to Schubert for the three-part Drei Klavierstücke, the chorale-like “Allegro Assai” first tempestuous and then lyrical, the subsequent “Allegretto” gently pretty in its reminiscing but also turbulent, and the closing “Allegro” rousing and buoyed by optimism. With “In Der Ferne,” a Journaux-transcribed lied from Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the album moves into its second half and shifts the thematic focus to renunciation, specifically renunciation of the self.

In one of the album’s strongest performances, Journaux imbues her gentle reading of Mahler’s “Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen” with a poetic intimacy that reflects a thorough grasp of the material and emotional connection to the composer’s sensibility. The seven-minute performance creates the impression of the wanderer having temporarily stopped moving to wholly surrender to an inner reverie. That peaceful quality carries over into the final Schubert setting, “Wandrers Nachtlied II,” both pieces setting the stage for the closing movement of Das Lied von der Erde, “Der Abschied.”

Journaux’s musicianship and performances...are stellar from start to finish. This exemplary pianist brings virtuosic command to the pieces but even better a thoughtful and sensitive sensibility that allows her to probe the material deeply, whether it be Mahler, Schubert, or Wagner. It’ll be interesting to see where her next venture takes her.

-- Textura

When we consider the great musical nations of the world, Hungary perhaps does not come to mind first. But the more we think about it, the higher the country rises in such a ranking. For Salaputia Brass, Hungary has played a leading role since the 20th century. It has established itself not only as a goldmine for instrumentalists, but has also produced many (contemporary) compositions for the developing genre of brass chamber music. This album brings together an overview of contemporary Hungarian music.

Shura Cherkassky was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1909 and died in London in 1995. He was initially taught by his mother who had played for Tchaikovsky, but when the family moved to the US in 1923, he studied with his long-time teacher and mentor, the legendary Josef Hofmann, before auditioning for Rachmaninov. Prior to World War II, he had made his name in the US but from 1945 he extensively toured Europe and settled in London in 1961. The last of the great Romantic tradition of pianists, Cherkassky was described by Bryce Morrison as a ‘mercurial genius’, a unique personality, blessed with an incredible technique, who delighted in defying convention as no performance was identical. For a musician reluctant to visit the studio, live performances were the showcase for his stunning virtuosity and creativity caught on the wing.