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.”

In 1855 the organ world in Germany discovered Franz Liszt's performance of his most famous transcriptions on the organ of Merseburg. Yves Rechsteiner recaptures the magic atmosphere of these concerts.

The Faust Symphony undoubtedly constitutes one of the principal works of Liszt’s Weimar period, if not indeed his orchestral masterpiece. Liszt had become acquainted with Goethe’s poem Faust in 1830, in the French translation of Gérard de Nerval. He began composing the work in the 1840s, after a visit to the Goethe House in Weimar. Its first performance was arranged for September 1857, to mark the centenary of Grand Duke Carl August and the erection of a statue to Goethe and Schiller. On this occasion Liszt rounded the work off by adding a tenor solo and chorus at the end. The premiere took place on 5 September. This musical transposition of the poem is performed here by Orchester Wiener Akademie under Martin Haselböck, and follows their recording of Liszt’s transcriptions of works by Schubert, released in 2015 (Alpha 471). In parallel with this, the Viennese period-instrument orchestra is also continuing its Resound Beethoven project, the recording of the complete symphonies at the venues of their first performances.

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The exclusive Chandos artist and award-winning pianist, Louis Lortie continues his critically acclaimed exploration of piano works by Liszt, turning to opera transcriptions, paraphrases and fantasies that with their technical innovation revolutionized composition for the piano.

In Réminiscences de ‘Don Juan’, based on three scenes from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Liszt creates a work renowned for its extreme technical difficulty. He dazzled audiences in his own time with performances of it, and it has remained notorious ever since, Ferruccio Busoni claiming that ‘this piece among pianists has acquired the almost symbolic significance of a pianistic summit’.

The Paraphrase de concert on Rigoletto is one of three Verdi paraphrases only published in 1960, each of which concentrates on one particular moment of its respective Verdi opera, presenting it in highly pianistic terms whilst maintaining the general lines of the original. In the Rigoletto paraphrase Liszt focuses on the aria ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’.

In the Valse de l’opéra ‘Faust’ de Gounod Liszt cleverly combines the waltz from Act I of the opera with a melodious love duet from Act II. After these materials have been transformed and Liszt has added his own musical tangents, the piece accelerates into a vertiginous whirl, reminiscent of Ravel’s much later La Valse, and finally the main theme reappears with majestic swagger and grandeur.

Completing the album are several more or less straightforward transcriptions based on operas by Richard Wagner who, despite a rocky start to their relationship, forged a close musical bond with Liszt. Among these transcriptions is the popular ‘Liebestod’ from Tristan und Isolde. Liszt never completed a transcription of its natural musical companion, the Prelude to the same opera, so here Louis Lortie has recorded his own arrangement of that piece.

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"Liszt’s transcriptions of, and fantasias on, excerpts from operas like 'Rigoletto' and 'Faust' – not to mention the works of his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner – are some of the most dazzling and complex piano works of the 19th century. Louis Lortie, a fantastic Lisztian, performs them with confidence and clarity. And his new version of the prelude to Wagner’s 'Tristan und Isolde,' a companion to Liszt’s transcription of the 'Liebestod,' stands comparison with the master." – The New York Times

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.

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Volume One was warmly received by critics and pianophiles alike. Jacob Lateiner's reputation was massive in his lifetime but he did not make very many studio recordings. This release and it's previous volume correct that anomaly with great distinction. Noted as a Beethoven interpreter, this album combines the Greatest of his Beethoven interpretations with the most famous of works by Schumann, Ravel and Liszt.

This collection contains the most important recordings by Alfredo Perl with piano works by Franz Liszt. A special highlight is the recording of the piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Alfredo Perl studied with Carlos Botto at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Günter Ludwig at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and Maria Curcio in London. He gave his first concert at the age of nine and then performed throughout South America and Europe as recitalist and with the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra and the Zagreb Symphony Orchestra. Perl has since been a prizewinner in major competitions, including the Ferruccio Busoni Competition in Bolzano and the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, and he won first prize at the International Piano Competition in Montevideo. Alfredo Perl is professor for piano at the Detmold University of Music and has been artistic director of the Detmold Chamber Orchestra since 2009.

This is a great live recital performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi. Pompa Baldi has more piano recordings for Centaur than any other pianist. This is an exceptional recital.

LISZT Piano Sonata. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13. Valse oubliée No. 1. 6 Paganini Etudes. Au lac de Wallenstadt. Il penseroso • André Watts (pn) • HÄNSSLER CD 93.718 (77:08) Live: Schwetzingen 5/25/1986

This is a live concert, but the sound is on par with just about any studio recording, and there is no applause, or any other distraction, from the audience. Liszt has figured prominently in André Watts’s repertory, both on disc and in concert, and there is nothing in this recital that you won’t find on one of the two Liszt CDs that he recorded for EMI not long before. There are the expected benefits and hazards. Watts has an occasional moment of slightly (very slightly!) less than flawless fingerwork—which is not something one would expect on a disc recorded in a studio, of course. On the other hand, Watts is more spontaneous here than on the EMI discs, which present his pianism purring and powerful like the engine of a racing car. There is purring and power here too, but also a touch of the unexpected, and that makes this new release worth exploring, especially if you don’t want to invest in the pair of EMI releases. (They were reissued at a bargain price in the label’s Double Fforte series, but that two-CD set is no longer in print.)

I think it’s been a while since Watts released a new CD, and it is good to be reminded what a terrific pianist he was … and I hope still is. (He is still a few years from his 70th birthday, and holds a faculty position at Indiana University in Bloomington.) His Liszt Totentanz is one of the most electrifying piano recordings ever made, and it reveals him—as does the present release—as having supreme digital dexterity and a flair for old-school virtuosity. At the same time, he never has been an effect-mongering showoff, and the performances on this CD confirm that intelligence and good taste are part of his skill set as well. I’ve heard more cohesive readings of the Sonata in B Minor, it’s true, but the music certainly does not fall apart, and Watts always keeps the big picture in focus. Some might be surprised by his strong flair for the Magyar elements in the Hungarian Rhapsody; they should remember that Watts’s mother was Hungarian.

If you don’t have any of Watts’s Liszt, I’d recommend this highly. If you do, I’d still recommend it, although I don’t think it eclipses the studio recordings.

FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

This release is the 49th volume in the Naxos series of the complete works of Franz Liszt. Volume 49 features a wide-ranging selection of dance pieces. The Valses oubliées reveal a compound of wistful nostalgia and advanced harmonies while the remarkable Csárdás macabre, a characteristic Hungarian folk-dance, is full of innovative features. The effervescent Mazurka brillante is a very rare example of Liszt making original use of this Polish form, whilst simultaneously transforming it. The Grand Galop cromatique, heard here in two versions, is a bravura encore piece that the young Liszt often played in his virtuoso recitals. The works are presented on this release by Goran Filipec, recent laureate of the Granc Prix du Disque of the Ferenc Liszt Society of Budapest.

Liszt: Études D’Exécution Transcendante

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Liszt's first meeting with Wagner in 1840 took place when the latter was struggling as a composer, and his transcriptions can be seen as part of a campaign to bring Wagner's work to the notice of a wider audience. These include many of Wagner's most famous dramatic moments, such as Isolde's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and the Wedding March from Lohengrin. The program concludes with the Solemn March to the Holy Grail from Wagner's last stage work Parsifal, Liszt's transcription of which was published in 1883, the year of Wagner's death.

All of the pieces in this programme have a literary or artistic connection as the background to their creation. Heard here in their first version, the Consolations owe their title to a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine and include a melody that later became the first Hungarian Rhapsody. The meditative Sposalizio was inspired by a painting by Raphael, and the Ballade by Gottfried Burger’s haunting ‘Lenore.’ Victor Hugo’s Apres une lecture de Dante is used powerfully by Liszt to express damnation and hope, and the first Mephisto Waltz derived from Lenau’s ‘Faust’ depicts a dance both sinister and amorous. Born in Rijeka in 1981, Goran Filipec studied at the Ino Mirkovich Academy in Croatia, at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and the Conservatoire national superieur de musique et de danse de Paris. During his early career, he was a top prizewinner of several international piano competitions. He performs across Europe, the US, South America and Japan as a recitalist and as a soloist with leading orchestras.

Remember Soyeon Kate Lee’s 2008 Zankel Hall recital, where she appeared in a concert gown constructed from 6000 recycled grape juice containers? Not surprisingly her outfit got more press than her actual music making, but the fact is that Lee is a splendid pianist who doesn’t need gimmicks. Her first appearance in Naxos’ complete Liszt piano music cycle attests to this.

Lee’s shapely and sonorous handling of the thick pianistic hurdles throughout Liszt’s transcription of the Sarabande and Chaconne from Handel’s Singspiel Almira holds interest in terms of technique and stamina, although the music is deadly dull. By contrast, Liszt’s paraphrase based on Gounod’s Hymne a Sainte Cecile thoroughly improves upon the original composition, where Lee’s contouring of the multi-thematic textural layers proves more pliable and forward moving than in Leslie Howard’s comparatively square (though no less sensitive) rendition.

So far as Liszt’s transcription from Joachim Raff’s forgotten opera König Alfred, Lee does not differentiate the opening Andante finale’s foreground and background material with Leslie Howard’s variety, yet she’s more animated and energetic in the subsequent Marsch. Lee also plays the Gounod transcriptions from Romeo et Juliette and La reine de Saba with a lovely lyrical sensitivity. The better known Valse from Gounod’s Faust paraphrase features scrupulous and crisply dispatched fingerwork, but the interpretation is a bit cut and dried, falling short of Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s glittery panache or the dynamic and rhythmic heft of Earl Wild and Egon Petri. However, she takes the opening section of Liszt’s transcription of Spohr’s Die Rose Romanze at a faster clip and with more vocally oriented phrasing than in Howard’s slower, more static traversal, heightening the music’s rich harmonic invention in the process. Annotations and engineering are first rate. In all, a strong entry in Naxos’ ongoing Liszt series.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

This 48th release in the Naxos edition of Franz Liszt’s complete piano works complements the first two volumes of the Hungarian Rhapsodies played by Jeno Jandó (8.554480 and 8.554481) that contain Nos. 1-19, S244/R106. This recording offers the much less frequently heard original Hungarian Rhapsodies S242 from the Magyar Dalok collection, introducing themes that Liszt would re-use in the much more famous S244 volumes. Jen? Jandó is one of the most prolific artists in the history of classical music recording. He is also one of its most appreciated and admired. Jen? Jandó is a professor at the Liszt Academy Budapest.

Brendel Plays Liszt, Vol. 2

Greek pianist George-Emmanuel Lazard's' superb debut release for Linn features two of the most famous works in the solo piano repertoire, both performed in breathtaking style. Originally released in 2006 'Liszt: Sonatas and Etudes' has been re-issued as part of Linn's ECHO series which offers a second chance to enjoy the best of the label's award-winning catalogue. Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor is one of the seminal works of the romantic piano repertoire and one of the most technically challenging pieces any pianist can undertake. Continuing this virtuosic theme, and demonstrating his great ambition as a pianist of the highest calibre, Lazard's also presents Liszt's Grandes �tudes de Paganini. This six-part composition, based on themes originally composed for violin by Niccol� Paganini, again places huge demands on the technical and interpretive abilities of the performer. As well as receiving a multitude of five star reviews upon it's release 'Liszt: Sonatas and Etudes' was chosen as one of '5 Essential Works by Franz Liszt' in 2012 by BBC Music Magazine. Born in Greece, George-Emmanuel Lazard's has a flourishing international career that has taken him from the United States and Mexico to Europe, Russia, Egypt, and the Middle East. During the past 20 years he has performed in some of the most prestigious venues worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, St Petersburg Philharmonia Hall, Palais des Beaux Arts, Festspielhaus, Cologne's Philharmonie, Stockholm's Konserthuset, Cite de la Musique in Paris, Vienna's Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Athens Megaron and Palace of the Arts in Budapest to name but a few. His appearances have received great critical acclaim; audiences and critics alike recognize him as one of the finest pianists of his generation. Lazard's has received a plethora of honorary awards and scholarships including being named an ECHO Rising Star.

On his debut album, the young pianist Corbyn Beisner indulges in the complexity, mysticism and passion of major piano works by Franz Liszt. Since his performing debut in 2006 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, op. 37, Corbin Beisner (born 1988) has been active as a classical pianist throughout Europe and the United States. Notable performances have included recitals at the Conservatoire Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, the Liszt Saal at the Accademia d’Ungheria in Rome, Italy, All-Liszt recitals throughout Switzerland, including a recital in the famous “Le Troi Roi” hotel in Basel, numerous concerts in Budapest, Hungary, and performances at the Liszt Summer Piano Festival at Schloss Schillingsfürst in Schillingsfürst, Germany.In the United States, he has been invited to perform by Chopin societies in Connecticut, Texas, the Chopin Foundation in Florida, and the American Liszt Society.

Vincent Larderet is a Steinway Artist who has given solo recitals at many of the world’s premier piano festivals and concert halls. The present release marks his debut on Piano Classics. His previous albums have explored the hot-house world of Impressionism and late Romanticism, making the intoxicating world of late Liszt a natural progression. Pieces on the edge of silence and tonality such as Nuages gris and Unstern! demand at least as much refined nuance of touch and color as the major cycles of Debussy and Ravel which Larderet has often performed in public. In his own booklet introduction, the pianist explains that the aim of the album is to capture the unrivalled rainbow of emotions that span Liszt’s protean oeuvre for the piano. His genius in creating the genre of programme music, almost from scratch (with help from Beethoven and Berlioz), is celebrated by the inclusion of the Dante Sonata of 1849, which condenses and transfigures the narrative arc of the entire Divine Comedy within a single 17-minute span. From four years later, the Second Ballade tells a Gothic tale of a night-ride, perhaps also the ancient Greek myth of Hero and Leander in which the hero drowns while attempting to swim across the Hellespont to visit his beloved, with the pianist called upon literally to produce wave upon wave of sound from his instrument in a masterpiece of tone-painting. The Funerailles anticipate the stern and enigmatic utterances of his very late period, condensing his rich harmonies and multi-layered voices to leave an ever-more imposing musical canvas which imbues each single note with significance and the overwhelming presence of mortality. The ‘sleepless’ vision of Schlaflos! Seems to come from another world; Larderet concludes his unique love-letter to Liszt with En rêve, which paints a more consoling dreamscape.

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