What a man, what a violin, what an artist! […] And his expression, his manner of phrasing, and finally his soul!’ Franz Liszt, 1831 (about Paganini). The transcriptions and arrangements of Paganini’s études represent a special case and, besides a bow before the great colleague, demonstrate demands on extreme technical skills. In his études, the pianist Liszt is quite evidently endeavouring to place alongside the Devil’s violinist Niccolò Paganini a Devil’s Pianist, which he completely succeeds in doing. In general, recourse is taken to the second version (1851) today, as it seems to be in keeping with Liszt’s definitive desire. However, all the more interesting on this new release is a direct comparison with the earlier version (1838), which exhibits an even more dense notation and difficulties transcending technical borders.

Included in Capriccio’s introductory 4-CD set, Liszt: Orchestral Pieces, released in honor of his 200th year in 2011, besides the famous Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 1-6 and Les Préludes are also less-frequently played Lisztian orchestral works such as the Dante-Symphony and the symphonic poems Hungaria and Orpheus. A trio of fine orchestras – the Vienna Philharmonic among them—and conductors add considerable luster to an already lustrous offering.

If the legend of the ‘sermon to the birds’ constitutes a magnificent example of narrative art on the piano, for this way of expressing extra-musical ideas solely with notes the three series of Années de Pèlerinage would seem to be a salient cycle in Liszt’s oeuvre. These ‘years of pilgrimage’ contain a total of 26 character pieces, forming a kind of musical diary for Liszt’s years of travelling. After the very successful release of Volume 1 ("Svizzerland") the young and talented italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi takes care of the second part, "Italy". Again, an impressive movie accompany the pianist on his trip through Italy, on the traces of Franz Liszt. This release shows not only the beauty of the landscape but also interesting statements of Francesco Piemontesi about his actual recording.

Liszt’s Études represent a peak in the history of piano writing. Beyond the tremendous technical difficulties, Liszt’s Études are poetic works, études tableaux, suggesting programme music influenced by literature, painting, and folklore as can be identified by titles such as Mazeppa, Wilde Jagd, Gnomenreigen or Feux follets. Similar to Schumann, Liszt added those lyrical appellations as an afterthought to stimulate the fantasy of both the listener and the performer, thus paving the path to modern piano playing as we know it today.

“I have chosen to bring here authentic testimonies regarding the Études from the late masterclasses he gave in Weimar, Pest, and Rome in the early eighties of the 19th century, just a few years before his death in 1886. The testimonies are given by his students Carl Lachmund, August Göllerich, Vianna da Motta and Arthur Friedheim. These precious testimonies provide us with an original and inspired illustration that faithfully represents Liszt’s masterclasses and his vocations.” (Amir Katz)

REVIEW:

In only a few of the 25 separate titles here does the Israeli pianist Amir Katz (b.1973) fall short of the very best. On the second disc are the 12 Transcendental Studies, deftly executed with robust tempos and full-bodied tone. Taken as a whole, this is a hugely impressive Liszt recital, ambitious in its scope, stylishly played and well recorded.

– Gramophone

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.

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

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

The Transcendental Études form a cycle of twelve pieces whose composition began in 1826 and was completed in 1851. Starting from the idea of an encyclopædic collection which, in the manner of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Liszt’s Transcendental Études became something of a seismograph of his compositional aesthetic, first strongly under the influence of Paganini, later more in the style of character pieces. These études are among the most difficult works ever written for the piano. Together with Chopin’s Études, they serve as a basis for piano technique, some of them already prefiguring musical impressionism, and they had a significant influence on subsequent piano music, most notably that of Debussy, Rachmaninov, Bartók, and Ligeti.

In 2009, Haochen Zhang was the youngest pianist ever to receive the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since then, he has captivated audiences worldwide with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination and spectacular virtuosity. After two releases devoted to concertos (Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, BIS-2381 and Beethoven, BIS-2581), Zhang returns to the solo recital with this disc devoted to some of the most important works in the repertoire of modern pianists.

REVIEW:

Haochen Zhang’s Liszt Transcendental Etudes are bound to attract intense scrutiny, in light of these works’ recent proliferation in the catalog and Zhang’s growing prominence on the international piano scene. The brief opening Prelude’s individual touches are totally borne out by the score: such as the accented ascending left-hand lines, or how the marcatissimo chords take on a slashing ferocity when played strictly in tempo, as opposed to the broadening one hears from most pianists.

Some may find the second etude too compulsively detailed where inner voices sometimes stick out to a fault, while the upward leggermente triplets are on the careful, studio-bound side. It takes a while for Paysage’s long lines to truly resonate and soar. Mazeppa’s thickets of notes hold no difficulties for Zhang’s technique, yet his clattery, undifferentiated textural layering pales next to the extraordinary three-dimensional perspectives revealed in Yunchan Lim’s 2022 Van Cliburn Competition semi-finals performance.

Happily, Zhang’s fusion of breathtaking speed and felicitous poetry make for a Feux Follets worthy to mention alongside those of Sviatoslav Richter and Minoru Nojima. The pianist builds Vision in steadily moving blocks, and wisely starts out less loudly than Liszt indicates in order for the fortes and fortissimos to make a stronger impact. He takes more than usual dramatic advantage of Eroica’s fermatas, while his muted deliberation in the main section transforms the music into more of a funeral than military march.

To my ears, Zhang’s swiftness and clipped articulation in Wilde Jagd’s broken octaves and rapid-fire chords evokes not so much a royal hunt as a Road Runner cartoon. However, the lyrical Ricordanza features some of Zhang’s most direct, and stingingly proportioned pianism in the cycle. His forthright pacing and wide dynamic scope in Harmonies du Soir convey a similar impression. While it’s impressive how Zhang shapes and controls No. 10 to the extent that he does with little help from the sustain pedal, the effects draw more attention to themselves rather than to the music’s underlying agitato subtext. By contrast, the pianist’s variety of touch and timbre minimizes the tremolo texture’s potential for fatigue and monotony.

In sum, you may not agree with all of Zhang’s interpretive decisions, yet he clearly is a thinking and often stimulating virtuoso who leaves a strong imprint on these oft-recorded works. With that in mind, I prefer the conceptual consistency and more settled musicality of an earlier BIS Liszt Etudes from pianist Laszlo Simon (a/k/a Joyce Hatto, for those who remember the scandal we helped to uncover back in 2007). I also should mention that Yunchan Lim’s stunning Liszt cycle from the Cliburn is imminent from Steinway & Sons, hence its inclusion among the reference versions.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

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."

In June 2022, Yunchan Lim became the youngest person ever to win gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; his performances throughout showcased a “magical ability” and a “natural, instinctive quality” (La Scena) that astounded listeners around the world. As Jury Chair Marin Alsop expressed: “Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together.” The depth of his artistry and connection to listeners also secured him the Audience Award and Best Performance of a New Work. Lim’s astounding performance of Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes from the semi-final round of the Van Cliburn Competition is available on his Steinway & Sons debut album.

REVIEWS:

This disc bears witness to the international arrival of a musician of authoritative stature and charismatic presence. The hope must be that the remarkable promise of this debut recital is triumphantly realized. In the meantime this is genuinely transcendent playing that demands to be heard.

— MusicWeb International

Lim’s effortless virtuosity and total immersion into Liszt’s idiom indeed define transcendental. A little audience rustle is a small price to pay for what must be the best live integral performance of the Transcendental Etudes ever preserved in sound. Let’s hope that Lim will sustain this level of artistic and pianistic brilliance over the course a long and fulfilling career.

— ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Competition performances often have a well-practiced, safe quality, but not this one; Lim goes out onto the edge and stays there. Everything one has heard about his playing is true, it is indeed astonishing.

— AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

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).

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.

This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.