Volume 55 in the critically acclaimed Liszt Complete Piano Works series features transcriptions of pieces by his contemporary Eduard Lassen, performed here by award-winning pianist Andrey Ivanov in his recording debut. Andrey gave his first concerto performance at the age of nine. In 2006, he was selected to study at the Central School of Music in Minsk, graduating to the Moscow Conservatoire. He won first prize at the Belgrade and Minsk International Piano Competitions and went on to perform in Moscow, St Petersburg, Belgrade, Brussels and Amsterdam. He is currently studying at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Pascal Nemirovski.

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Franz Liszt (1811-1886), indefatigable pianist, conductor and composer, was one of the first romantic composers to recognize the genius of Franz Schubert. Apart from his numerous piano transcriptions of Schubert’s songs he arranged 34 waltzes, written by Schubert to entertain his audience, into a series of 9 “Soirées de Vienne”, elaborate compositions written in Liszt’s inimitable pianistic idiom, refined, perceptive and utterly charming.

Alberto Ferro (born 1996) is one of the most remarkable talents of today. He achieved his Master's degree under the guidance of Prof. Epifanio Comis, his lifetime mentor, at the "Vincenzo Bellini" Institute of Music in Catania (2018). He also attended several piano masterclasses held by very important pianists such as Michel Beroff, Dina Yoffe, Leslie Howard, Elisso Virsaladze, Joaquin Achúcarro, Richard Goode, Jörg Demus and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He won the 2017 Beethoven Competition in Bonn and took top prizes at the Busoni Competition as well as the Premio Venezia. His recent CD with the Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff received 5-star reviews in the international press.

As a boy during the years 1822–23 Liszt studied in Vienna with Czerny and Salieri, at the same time as Schubert was winning his reputation as a leading composer in the city. Many years later Liszt did much to introduce Schubert’s music to a wider audience, not least through his prodigious transcriptions. In the case of the Three Marches and Mélodies hongroises, Liszt selected music originally written for piano duet, but in Soirées de Vienne, a set of nine pieces of which some were to remain prominent in Liszt’s concert repertoire, he fashioned a sequence of truly memorable valse-caprices.

Canadian-born Joel Hastings was the winner of the 2006 8th International Web Concert Hall Competition and the 1993 International Bach Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He won particular acclaim for his performance at the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Reviewers described his playing as passionate, mesmerizing, hypnotic, and transcendental. A Steinway Artist, he performed solo recitals and orchestral engagements across Canada, the United States, and in Europe. His discography includes live recordings of Liszt’s song and operatic transcriptions and Chopin’s 24 Etudes. His recordings received Canadian critics’ awards, and were praised in publications such as American Record Guide, Limelight magazine, and Musicweb International. His playing was featured on CBC national radio and numerous stations throughout the United States. In August 2014, Naxos released his recording of solo piano music by the American composer Carter Pann to much critical acclaim (8.559751). Joel Hastings died in 2016 at the early age of 46.

LISZT: Annees de Pelerinage, Vol. 3

Timothy Fallon and Ammiel Bushakevitz appear regularly together in recital, and in 2013 won first prize in the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition. For their début album as a duo they have devised an all-Liszt programme which spans some 40 years of the composer's career, taking in settings of poems in four different languages. Most of Liszt's 70 or so songs were composed during the 1840s, but Liszt returned to many of them over the course of his life, sometimes revising them more than once and in some cases arranging them for solo piano. Certain of these arrangements, such as the three settings of sonnets by Petrarch which open the present release, have become better known than the originals. Another Italian setting is the tenderly lyrical Angiolin da biondo crin, written for Liszt's daughter Blandine. Composed in 1839 it is the composer's first song, but Fallon and Bushakevitz have chosen to perform the revised version made some 10 years later. Although French was not Liszt’s mother tongue, it became his preferred language and he composed a number of songs to French texts – many of them by Victor Hugo, his friend and idol. Another author admired by Liszt was Schiller, whose Wilhelm Tell inspired revolutionaries during the tumultuous 1840s. Among some of the later songs are Jugendglück, a rhapsodic tour-de-force exemplary of Liszt’s virtuosic style, and Go not, happy day from 1879, the only English setting among his songs. The programme closes with another late song, Ihr Glocken von Marling, to a poem by Emil Kuh which inspired Liszt to create an intensely evocative soundscape.

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REVIEW:

American tenor Timothy Fallon's voice is exceptional, darkish in tone, evenly produced, capable of both ringing high notes and a superbly controlled mezza voce. His way with words is thoughtful, considerate: the catalog of emotions that opens Pace non trovo is carefully if intelligently negotiated; later on, the Hugo settings Comment disaient-ils and Enfant, si j'étais roi gleam with understated wit and and sensuality. No serious Lisztian will want to be without this disc.

– Gramophone

Album contains a bonus DVD: "Franz Liszt: Sonata in B Minor: A Faustian Dream - A Short Film Concept by Khatia Buniatishvili"

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LISZT Liebestraum No. 3. Piano Sonata in b. Mephisto Waltz No. 1. La Lugubre gondola II. BACH-LISZT Prelude & Fugue in a , BWV 543 • Khatia Buniatishvili (pn) • SONY 787385 (67:27)


& DVD: Franz Liszt, Sonata in B Minor—A Faustian Dream


In a yeasty media coup, 24-year-old Khatia Buniatishvili’s nominal recording debut (she’s a supporting artist on two other albums) burst upon a startled world in July, implicitly challenging all other Liszt players in a program composed almost entirely of the banefully familiar, that is, on ground so wastingly overcultivated that it would seem that, without resorting to gross distortions or gimmicks, there’s nothing new to be said. Suspicion of the latter is given a fillip by an accompanying 4:28 DVD, “a film poem featuring Khatia Buniatishvili as Marguerite, Mephisto & Faust.” YouTube clips of the artist, from 2008, at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein Competition show her clingingly gowned in modestly muted colors, hair back, sans makeup. For the DVD and photo-rife album booklet, with her piano on the lawn, her dark hair wantoned by breezes as her hands command the keyboard, her costume shifts rapidly from flowing skirts to man’s evening dress and top hat, the full sensual mouth rivetingly vermilioned. An attractive young woman, so these siren-like overtures are not entirely unwelcome. There’s even a photo of breezes lifting her skirt à la Marilyn Monroe. Hype aside, how does she play?


“The” Liebestraum is all sensuously caressing gossamer in an exquisitely escalating passion whose tone becomes more beautiful as it grows louder to issue in a languishingly expressive coda leaving one with the sensation of hearing this hackneyed piece reborn. Yet there is nothing exaggerated, overstated, or eccentric here—rather, one is immediately persuaded by a disarming sense of total identification. In caps on the album jacket, Buniatishvili declares, “I was always aware that my first recording had to be a portrait of Liszt. Only he would enable me to present as a unity the many aspects of my soul.” As off-putting and megalomaniacal as this seems, it is superbly underwritten by what follows.


From the sonata’s electric initial octaves one’s anticipation is whetted, one’s attention compelled, one’s jaded response to the many-too-many auditions—mediocre or vaulting—encountered over a lifetime cleansed by the artist’s utter conviction as this old story sloughs off its tarnish and begins to glow with spellbinding lift. The marcato motif stings with peculiar mordancy, the grandioso theme returns with the force of benediction, the amorous cantando espressivo sings in ecstatic delirium, a paradoxical mixture of volatility and control wing the giddy fugato, passagework shifts from mercurial to crackling to cataclysmic, for once answering the score’s call for agitato and prestissimo . Cresting rhetoric acquires conversational point spurred by color, passion, and quicksilver whose rhythmic flexibility transcends rubato with a gait as natural as breathing. On the point of writing that this must be one of the swiftest Liszt sonatas on discs, a check revealed that it plays for exactly 30 minutes, and is thus within the mainstream, though the sonata’s development generates a suspense similar to performances that are significantly faster—Gunnar Johansen’s, Argerich’s, the 1932 Horowitz classic.


Confirming something extraordinary, tilts at the sonata by Garrick Ohlsson and Marc-André Hamelin turned up in the same post. Ohlsson’s ruminative take might be described as expansive, generous, loving, mature, relaxed, dimpled with nuance, etc., were it not that distended phrasing in lyrical moments, unctuous ponderousness in grandioso passages and transitions, the patient interrogation of every slow run, recitativo , and bit of fioriture stultify rather than enhance their expressiveness. Hamelin’s long-anticipated account unfolds over a similar time frame—31:09 to Ohlsson’s 32: 28—though where Ohlsson is deadpan or generous in dispensing generic sensitivity, Hamelin awakens the contrast of noble sentiments—oracular, irascible, amorous, religious, philosophic, demonic—with grandly strutted, if sober, rhetoric. Moreover, his complete ease of execution and incisive touch render his reading all plangent silver, if also predictable. On the other hand, his expansive scale may provoke disappointment that he has chosen not to essay the thriller approach inaugurated by Horowitz’s stunning 1932 recording, unfolding in a compressed frame of around 26 minutes to jazz the sonata’s rhetorical grandeurs like Burton in Hamlet . Hamelin seems to be trying to live down his reputation as a hypervirtuoso (in Peter J. Rabinowitz’s useful coinage) whose omnicompetent technique facilitated the triumphant revelation of seldom-heard composers on the fringes of the possible—e.g., Alkan, Godowsky, Sorabji—and win acceptance as a man for all seasons, so to speak, with recordings of Schumann and Haydn. His staid, considered Liszt sonata is another item in this train, recalling not Argerich or Horowitz, as one might have expected of the last-century Hamelin, but Brendel. Phrase by phrase, episode after episode, neither man awakens the cliffhanging passionate narrative Buniatishvili discovers beneath Liszt’s explicit notation, compelling it to sing, confide, swell aerobically, and thunder.


In the remainder of her program, the Mephisto Waltz is told off with crackling zest, rife with—to borrow the Liszt chapter title of Harold Schonberg’s The Great Pianists —thunder, lightning, mesmerism, sex. Finicking and seriously understated, if sinuously oracular, La Lugubre gondola II misses the shuddering prehension Brendel could bring to it, but the haunted soulscapes of late Liszt are, perhaps, a misalliance for the young and lively. Liszt’s transcription of the Bach Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, on the other hand, is hand-in-glove, a miracle of melodious volatility echoing with fleet grandeur Liszt’s recognition of Bach as a Romantic precursor.


In sum, stunning, fascinating, phenomenal.


Buniatishvili’s album note catches her struggling mightily with The Great Ideas. “There were two reasons behind the idea that Faust should be the leitmotif of this CD programme: firstly, it is considered to be an ‘unofficial libretto’ for the sonata; the second reason is that the legend of Faust has been presented with so many interpretations, subjects, even differing fates, that it truly encourages improvisation. The code of the universe seems to be engraved into the theme of Faust.” In caps, she gives us “MARGUERITE—symbol of beauty—innocent childish soul and mature feminine body. MEPHISTO—symbol of temptation—voluptuousness, money, glamour, bohemia. FAUST—a genius that doubts, an artist that looks for immortality, a human being that needs love.” Are we performing a piano work or working a Tarot divination? In this postmodern jumble it is dismaying to see how readily the Faust legend’s literary legacy passes into teen girl fiction, the stuff of Harlequin Romances. For those who know that legacy, it is all too facile to be patronizing. To be fair, when Liszt immediately followed the sonata with his Faust Symphony , he sidestepped the vexed question of whose Faust—Lessing’s, Goethe’s, Grabbe’s, Lenz’s, Lenau’s, et al.—to compose character portraits of the protagonists without a programmatic literary allegiance. If to conceive the sonata in these half-baked terms fuels the incandescence on disc, so be it. And if Buniatishvili should develop literary discrimination commensurate with her hypervirtuosic interpretive powers she may well give us the finest romance since Wuthering Heights.


Sound is taken with detailed, ear-tickling immediacy filling an aural frame whose large-hall ambience becomes apparent only in quieter moments. If you’ve read this far, you must hear this!


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

An inspired duo creates one of the most enjoyable cello discs in years.

With Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough an inspired duo, natural recording artists both, this is one of the most enjoyable new cello discs I have heard in years. I should be sorry if the sentimental title, “Forgotten Romance”, taken from the shortest and least ambitious piece in the collection, deterred any serious listener from investigating it. The logic of the grouping is that the five cello pieces of Liszt, all of them brief and all of them adapted from earlier works, are used to frame the high romantic cello sonatas, by Grieg and Rubinstein, that are in danger of neglect. As Isserlis suggests in his engagingly argued note, “The unabashed emotionalism, the thrilling climaxes and memorable melodies of all such works are all too easily sneered at nowadays, and concert programmes are thus deprived of a host of 19th-century treasures.”

His advocacy is well founded, for in these exhilarating performances he and Hough challenge each other in spontaneously imaginative interplay to bring out all the qualities he mentions. The point is that with performances like these, as sharply disciplined as they are passionate, all the emotion is very well founded, with sentimentality firmly kept at bay. Romance oubliee, adapted from an early song, was originally written for viola, with an added arpeggio passage at the end reflecting Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, which Liszt had arranged for viola and piano. As Paul Coletti and Leslie Howard demonstrate on their Hyperion recording (11/93), Romance oubliee is rather better suited to that instrument, but makes a pleasant ‘song without words’ here to introduce the magnificent Grieg Sonata. Written when Grieg was considering composing a second piano concerto, its material and manner very much reflect the A minor Concerto, with Grieg at his most richly distinctive. Compared with, say, Truls Mork and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Isserlis and Hough are lighter and more imaginative, never running the risk of sounding sentimental, choosing speeds that flow easily and naturally. Paradoxically that makes the result more moving than any underlining of expression.

One could say the same about all these performances. The two Elegies – with Isserlis most persuasive in the improvisation-like passages – lead to the Rubinstein First Sonata. It has the lyrical directness and honest four-square construction which make the Mendelssohn cello sonatas so attractive. After a strongly characterized first movement Isserlis and Hough adopt a genuine flowing Allegretto for the siciliano rhythms of the central movement, made charmingly fresh, and the exuberant finale finds Hough at his most brilliant in the shimmering piano writing. The disc is rounded off by two Liszt pieces slightly more substantial than the others – Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth (“The Cell in Nonnenwerth”) – a late adaptation of an early song, spare in texture, and Liszt’s tribute to Wagner after his death, La lugubre gondola, one of many different adaptations. It would be a pity if such inspired playing failed to be appreciated, when, as Hough says, all this music so richly deserves to be better known.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [4/1996]

Elena Kuschernova was the last pianistic discovery of Harold Schonberg, music critic for the New York Times and prolific author on great performers. After listening to her debut album, he dubbed her a “Pianist who grabs the imagination,” and he lauded her Scriabin album as “the best recorded performances I am familiar with.” Elena has performed at many important festivals such as the Gustav Mahler Music Festival in Toblach, the Bach Festival in Ansbach, the Festival of Rarities of the Piano Music in Husum, and others. She is also internationally recognized as a piano professor, giving master classes in Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden, and the USA. Since 2006 she has been guest professor at the Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, and has been a Steinway Artist since 2002. She resides in Baden-Baden and Manhattan.

Famous Rhapsodies

Live recordings, 1972-1882. Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-87) is largely forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic pianists of the twentieth century, and his eccentric personality and bizarre career have few parallels in the history of music. These late concert recordings, all but four released here for the first time, are representative of Nyiregyházi's art, and should help to rehabilitate a lost genius whose reputation has rarely matched his artistic stature.

Although Liszt’s thirteen symphonic poems exist in two-piano transcriptions prepared by the composer himself, it was his Czech student August Stradal (1860–1930) who transcribed twelve of them for solo piano – versions which demand almost superhuman virtuosity. Stradal died before he could tackle the last of the symphonic poems, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe; Risto-Matti Marin has made good that lacuna with his own virtuoso transcription, and adds six of Stradal’s transcriptions of Liszt songs for good measure. The Finnish pianist, Risto-Matti Marin, began his piano lessons at the Kuopio Conservatoire as a pupil of Jouni Räty and continued with professional studies there under Jaakko Untamala. In 1998 he transferred to the Sibelius Academy to study with Erik T. Tawaststjerna, and from 2002 onwards also studied with Teppo Koivisto. He gained a Master´s degree in music in 2004. Since 2005 he has studied at the Sibelius Academy DocMus department. Winner of the first prize in the Kuopio Piano Competition in 1996 and the Helmi Vesa Piano Competition in 1999, Marin was awarded the third prize in the Weimar International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 2003.

It was natural for virtuoso performer Franz Liszt to expand his repertoire by transcribing his songs for solo piano. The human voice is the purest of musical instruments, and composers have always been inspired by its warmth, expression and emotional power. Liszt’s masterful command of the piano and his ability to transform vocal lines into purely instrumental sounds is evident throughout this album: the dramatic narrative in both versions of Die Loreley, the watery, arpeggiated texture of Am Rhein im schönen Strome and the orchestral qualities of Gastibelza being only a few examples of these pianistic treasures. Considered an ‘extraordinary musician’ by Martha Argerich, critically acclaimed Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin enjoys active performing, recording and teaching careers. A prizewinner of several international piano competitions, Dossin received First Prize and the Special Prize at the 2003 Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires. Other international awards include the Silver Medal and Second Honourable Mention at the Maria Callas Grand Prix, and Third Prize and the Special Prize at the ‘W.A. Mozart’ International Piano Competition, in addition to several awards from competitions in Brazil. An active recording artist, his discography comprises 15 albums released across several labels, including seven albums with Naxos.

“Can the devil play the organ?” asked Jules Verne. What a question! Listen to the incomparable crackling of the Mephisto Waltz, the fugue sparking like the flames of inferno. Then the nightmare miraculously yields to the angelic tones of the Suite francaise, followed by the down-to-earth Variations serieuses. What magic enables Karol Mossakowski to glide so swiftly from one realm to another? A few minutes of improvisation… For his first album, the talented Karol Mossakowski (artist in residence at Radio France for the 2020/22 seasons, following Thomas Ospital), recorded on the organ Gerhard Grenzing of the Auditorium of Radio France his transcriptions of the works of four great composers: Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Liszt. To enrich this contrasting program, Karol Mossakowski was inspired by pianists of the 19th century and improvised a few bars to move from one shore to another where another key, another atmosphere will reign.