LISZT: Sacred Choral Music

LISZT: Piano Sonata in B Minor / Vallee d'Obermann / La camp

Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 9: Sacred Music Transcripti

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, p.150) - "...[Philip Thomson] plays to the music's virtuosic elements, albeit with great flair and gusto; he exploits the brilliance of passagework at every available opportunity....He brings great eloquence to both the `Consolations'...and to a disturbing piece for left hand alone, `Ungarns Gott: Magyarok Istene' (God of the Magyars)...."

The 12 Transcendental Etudes are the ultimate test of quasi-orchestral virtuosity and of the capacity to achieve nobility and true eloquence. Jand� perhaps lacks diabolic frisson in the more ferocious numbers but his performances, overall, aren't disfigured by willful, sensational attributes or hysteria. No-1 is an impressive, dramatically pointed, curtain-raiser, and he can hell-raise with assurance in 'Mazeppa'. His 'Feux follets' hardly sparks with the brilliance of, say, some of the full-blooded accounts of certain Russian artists, but even when it hardly modulates from study to tone-poem it's still more than capable (higher praise than you might think where such intricacy is concerned). He flashes an impressive rapier at the start of 'Eroica' and there's plenty of swagger and facility in the so-called 'Appassionata' �tude. 'Chasse-neige', too, proceeds with a fine sense of it's menacing start to a howling, elemental uproar before returning to distant thunder. Jand� is less assured in introspection, yet it has to be said that all-encompassing versions of the Transcendental Etudes are hard to come by. Jand� is impressively recorded.

The problem with Naxos’ Liszt Edition is that it’s easy to overlook some really outstanding releases. If you’ve been following his career, Arnaldo Cohen is a first-rate virtuoso whose Liszt discs on BIS have been outstanding. This Naxos program is just as interesting. The transcription of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre almost amounts to a new work (he adds several minutes to it) and is absolutely fascinating. It was one of Horowitz’s most impressive recordings from the 1940s. Unstern: sinistre, disastro is one of those strange, dark, late works, but unlike some of them it’s one that’s uninterruptedly gripping.

Cohen has recorded the piano and orchestra version of Totentanz very powerfully for BIS, and this solo piano version is just as exciting. You may not know that the final crashing scale at the end of the orchestral version actually comes from this arrangement; in Liszt’s original the orchestra closes the piece without the piano. The bottom line: this is a wonderful recital of some of Liszt’s darker and more death-obsessed music, and it’s a tribute to Cohen’s programming intelligence, never mind his virtuosity, that he pulls it off without a trace of monotony (having the Huguenots fantasy in the middle of the program certainly helps).

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 12: Hungarian Rhapsodies, V

Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 11: Transcriptions of Vocal

Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 10: Scherzo and March, 3 Li

All four of these symphonic poems are performed here in outstanding fashion. Crisp, lively playing of symphonic masterpieces! Halasz and the Katowice give us a selection of the most famous symphonic poems, with major success. Just the right balance is struck throughout, with the quiet passages played gently & beautifully and when the music explodes this is classical thunder at it's best. The symphonic poems of Liszt caused some controversy. One of the most influential critics in Vienna, Eduard Hanslick, a champion of Brahms, wrote in 1857 of the impertinence of such an attempt: He fancies his music capable of fiddling and blowing the most magnificent phenomena of myth and history, the most profound thoughts of the human mind. Hanslick's objection was not to music with some extra-musical association, but to the vastness of the subjects tackled and what he saw as a reliance on an external program to justify an absence of musical content. The Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra of Katowice (PRNSO) was founded in 1945, soon after the end of the World War II, by the eminent Polish conductor Witold Rowicki. The PRNSO replaced the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra which had existed from 1934 to 1939 in Warsaw, under the direction of another outstanding artist, Grzegorz Fitelberg. In 1947 Grzegroz Fitelberg returned to Poland and became artistic director of the PRNSO. He was followed by a series of distinguished Polish conductors - Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiezko, Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugala, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanislaw Wislocki and, since 1983, Antoni Wit. The orchestra has appeared with conductors and soloists of the greatest distinction and has recorded for Polskie Nagrania and many international record labels. Michael Halasz Born in Hungary in 1938, Michael Halasz began his professional career as principal bassoonist in the Philharmonia Hungarica, a position he occupied for eight years, before studying conducting in Essen. His first engagement as a conductor was at the Munich Gartnerplatz Theater, where, from 1972 to 1975, he directed all operetta productions. In 1975 he moved to Frankfurt as principal Kapellmeister under Christoph von Dohnanyi, working with the most distinguished singers and conducting the most important works of the operatic repertoire. Engagements as a guest-conductor followed, and in 1977 Dohnanyi took him to the Staatsoper in Hamburg as principal Kapellmeister.

Franz Liszt viewed his solo piano transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies as a means to disseminate these works and make them accessible to the general public. This, of course, was decades before Edison invented recorded sound, and a century before umpteen Beethoven cycles jockeyed for position on the CD racks. Why listen to Beethoven's symphonies on the piano, then, when orchestral versions are everywhere to be had? I can answer that question in four words: Liszt was a genius. He conveys the emotional essence of Beethoven's instrumentation in pianistic terms, with a sixth sense for when to fill in textures, as well as what to leave out. While the piano writing isn't particularly dense, the keyboard layout involves frequent register shifts and busy contrapuntal activity. Konstantin Scherbakov's stupendous technique and grounded musicianship allows him to bring these elements into play with fluent ease and rock-solid rhythm. He may not inflect the Fifth Symphony's slow movement as ravishingly as Glenn Gould, but he faces the finale's notey hurdles without resorting to Gould's overdubbing tactics.


The Second Symphony is even better. Scherbakov's swift and steady first movement introduction slides into the Allegro con brio with insidious ease, and his heartfelt, pellucid Larghetto virtually plays itself. No tempo compromises in the Scherzo and Finale are neccesary under this pianist's pliable, secure hands. If Naxos continues this segment of its Liszt cycle with Scherbakov, it will have a worthy foil to counter Cyprien Katsaris' more personalized idiosyncratic Beethoven/Liszt symphony survey. The resonant, full-bodied, and clear sonics clinch my enthusiastic recommendation.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Liszt: Annees De Pelerinage, Vol. 2

LISZT: Annees de Pelerinage, Vol. 3