Born in Odessa, pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. His large and ever expanding repertoire extends from Scarlatti and Bach, the Viennese Classicists, Chopin and Liszt, the German and Russian Romantics, and the most important composers of the 20th c. This new six-disc edition of Bloch live Liszt recordings contains the complete Annees de Pelerinage I-III, the Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, paraphrases on opera themes, as well as polonaises, concerto etudes and other piano pieces.

Shin-Heae Kang, a young German pianist of Korean origin, has received numerous music awards, special prizes and scholarships and won many piano competitions, including the prize of honour of the German Order of Druids in 2006. She has performed in Europe, Asia and the USA, collaborating with renowned orchestras (including the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the State Orchestra Braunschweig) and appearing at noted festivals (including the Mariinsky International Piano Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival). Included in her projects for the 2019/20 season is a concert with her mentor and legendary pianist Martha Argerich, together with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under the direction of chief conductor Andrew Manze. For this release she has chosen a programme of Franz Liszt.

• Franz Liszt composed his many spectacular paraphrases for performance during and after his days as a touring, concertizing artist • Italian pianist Andrea Trovato has won several prizes for piano in national and international competitions, and has toured successfully across Europe. Among the several dozen works in his repertoire are quite a number of Liszts.

Franz Liszt was not necessarily known for the composition of sacred music. Piano pieces are what etched his name into history. The piano pieces included on this release, however, are works that were inspired by the Divine. A deeply religious man, particularly in his older age, Liszt composed a great deal of “religious” piano music, including his Ave Maria, Angelus, Miserere, Legendes, Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude, and many more. Performing these works is Italian pianist Irene Russo, who is making her Brilliant Classics debut with this two-disc release. The album also includes extensive liner notes and an artist biography.

Piano visionary Sandrine Erdely-Sayo pays a dignified tribute to Maestro Franz Liszt in MAJESTIC LISZT, an intimate recording of some of his finest works. Having a deep respect and admiration since childhood, Erdely-Sayo pours every ounce of her being into capturing the contemplative and song-like quality that pervades Liszt's middle-to-late repertoire. A rich and elegant session, it's impossible not to be enraptured by her sensitive and languishing treatment in Consolations, nor her delicate attention to poetics in the melody lines of Standchen and Romance in E Minor. Erdely-Sayo shines in the beloved Liebestraume, delivering an electrifying interpretation while still maintaining a dream-like musicality at it's core. MAJESTIC LISZT is a perfect introduction to the Maestro's oeuvre, catering to both devoted Liszt enthusiasts and those just starting to explore his music.

Danish pianist Emil Gryesten Jensen (born 1985) studied piano performance at the Jutland Academy of Music in his hometown Aarhus, at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and at the International Piano Academy Lake Como. His notable teachers include the Danish pianist Anne Øland, his teachers at the Sibelius Academy, Erik Tawaststjerna and Eero Heinonen, and, at the International Piano Academy Lake Como in Italy, the American pianist and educator William Grant Nabore´, as well as Dmitri Bashkirov, Fou Ts'ong and Tamas Vasary. He has been rewarded at numerous national and international piano competi- tions. At the age of 15 he won the first prize at the Hamburg Steinway Klavierwettbewerb, and the following year he won the Danish Steinway Competition. In 2006 he won the first prize, a Blu¨thner grand piano, at the Malmo¨-Blu¨thner Piano Competition in Sweden. While a student at the Sibelius Academy he won the first prize at the Finnish National Piano Competition in Jyva¨skyla¨ in March 2010. Later that year he received the first prize as well as the Audience Prize at the Nordic Piano Competition in Nyborg, Denmark.On this, his second release, he performs works by Franz Liszt.

Pianist Klara Wurtz has an impressive oeuvre of recordings, with over 35 CDs to her name. For this new release, her fourth with Piano Classics, she has chosen music from Janacek and Kodaly. Wurtz has chosen this program largely in part to the intimacy these works present, and their close relation to their native country’s folklore. Klara Wurtz’ previous releases have attained critical acclaim. Of her prior Schubert recording with Piano Classics, Classicstoday.com writes, “Klara Wurtz’ intelligence, technical finesse and innate musicality serve the Schubert Impromptus well.”

PIANO CONCERTOS 1 & 2 · TOTENT

Franz Liszt: Works for Piano

This CD includes music by the composer Franz Liszt from the performance 'Tom & Jerry in the Garden of Earthly Delights'. For this performance, pianist Martin Oei commissioned animations and videos to illustrate the life of Franz Liszt. Martin's aim is to introduce a younger audience to classical piano music and the remarkable role that Liszt played in the 19th century. The CD consist of original works, the monumental ‘Sonata in B’ (a very typical Liszt piece, one in which the musical themes characterize the characters Mephisto, Gretchen and Faust), the eighth Transcendental Etude 'Wilde Jagd' (Wild Hunt), Liebestraum, the Dante sonata and some arrangements. With the arrangements Liszt contributed to the fame of other composers. An original Erard grand piano from 1846 was used for the recording of this CD. In the 19th century Erard was the leading manufacturer of grand pianos and Liszt's favourite instrument.

Faith of My Heart - Faith of My Heart explores the lesser-known, deeply spiritual side of Franz Liszt by presenting an overview of his sacred choral music, including the Missa Choralis, settings of the Pater noster and Ave maris stella, and other works. Despite the intense personal suffering and upheaval in his life, Liszt always returned to the church for refuge, comfort, and strength. This hard-won peace, as well as his passionate insistence on raising the caliber of sacred music, is reflected in this recording

Classical Music

LISZT Piano Concertos: No. 1 in E?; No. 2 in A. Totentanz • Nelson Freire (pn); Michel Plasson, cond; Dresden P • BRILLIANT 93846 (52:47)


Rehearing these performances a dozen years on, my initial reaction (see Fanfare 19:4) stands: “With Plasson hand-in-glove, Freire takes everything with an ease which skims airily, mercurially through Liszt’s fantasy—a performance not unlike many other fine, and some great, ones in its heroic dash set off by lambent lyricism, but distinguished by consistent effervescence. Even the Second Concerto’s march-like allegro decisio episode is, without holding back, managed with such finesse that it seems of a piece with what has gone before rather the usual vulgar eruption.” Amid the ongoing plethora of the Big Three—the concertos and Totentanz —in recorded performances, this 1994 title is a standout, a refreshment. Sound is concert hall (actually, the Lukaskirche, Dresden) panoramic, but still packing plenty of punch: spacious, yet detailed. Recommended.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

Like Liszt loved Italy, Takahiro Yoshikawa also dedicates his latest album to the country he loves. Mr. Takahiro Yoshikawa was born in Nishinomiya, Japan. He graduated in pianoforte in 1996 at the State University of Fine Arts and Music of Tokyo under the guidance of MadamTakako Horie. In 1993 he attended a Master class given by the renowned pianist Conrad Hansen in Lubeck (Germany). From 1996 to 1999 he attended In 1999 Master in the same University under the guidance of Mr. Terugi Karashima, where Mr. Takahiro Yoshikawa was awarded the “Bösendorfer” prize. He has won numerous international competitions, and has performed as a soloist at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on several occasions.

All these pieces date from Liszt's austerer, later years when he had abandoned the life of a lionized itinerant virtuoso. Yet apart from To Petofi's Memory and Mosonyi's Funeral Procession—written to commemorate two cherished, late-lamented compatriots—Jeffrey Swann's chosen programme makes formidable enough technical demands for the disc to sell under the title of "The Virtuoso Liszt"... In so far as sheer prestidigitation is concerned, I would say that Swann's fingerwork is even swifter and sharper-cut than that of the mellower Katsaris (Teldec/ASV) or Howard (Hyperion). In much of the love music in the Waltzes he also shows himself capable of phrasing as poetic as it is intense... [I]n his own highly-strung, darting way, Swann certainly brings home [Liszt's] exploratory daring. As for the two valedictory Hungarian portraits (incidentally listed in the wrong order on the box) I would have preferred a slower tempo for both—and tauter, more inexorable rhythm in the main theme of To Petofi's Memory. Nevertheless, both bring reminders of the searching musician in Swann that won him first prize in Milan's Dino Ciani Competition in the early 1970s.

-- Gramophone [8/1989]