Classical Music

Liszt: Piano Works

Enrico Pace has a special affinity for the music of Liszt. First Prize winner of the first International Liszt Competition 1989 in Utrecht, he dazzled both jury and audience with playing of immense power of imagination, subtlety and devilry (here his own appearance worked to his advantage). This event marked the beginning of an impressive international career. For a long time, Pace considered recordings to be lacking the inspiration and excitement of a live concert. Thankfully, he reconsidered this position and this release from Piano Classics marks his long-awaited recording debut. It features a selection of works near to Pace's heart that are sure to touch the hearts of his many admirers and fans.

Misha Dacic's concerts at the Miami Piano Festival in recent years made a sensational impact, as is evidenced on YouTube. They show that appearances do not deceive: he is as much of a wizard as he appears. A true artist, with limitless technique, he has the ability to conjure up unheard-of tonal effects from the piano, evoking the most amazing timbres and sonorities. Dacic's affinity with Liszt shows in the selection of music on this new recording, which is centered around three masterpieces: The epic B-A-C-H Variations, the seldom heard Grosses Konzertsolo and the Dante Sonata, in which Dacic incorporates elements from all three versions Liszt made (prepare for some surprises). As a suitable conclusion to this tribute, Dacic ends with the late masterpiece La Lugubre Gondola.

Classical Music

Classical Music

“When a young artist chooses Liszt for his CD debut, it would be easy to think, “Aha, someone wants to show off his virtuoso abilities!” But I’ve made this decision out of a desire to show Franz Liszt in a different way. We live in an increasingly fast-moving age, without much opportunity to ruminate on questions of meaning and spirituality. Liszt probably found himself in a similar dichotomy. I am thoroughly convinced that the more profound musical value of the works I’ve chosen are often underestimated, and that there is too little contemplation about Liszt’s personality.” (Alexander Krichel)

Few literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe's play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe's masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony 'in three characteristic pictures', each devoted to a key character in the play: Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas. This recording presents the original, purely instrumental version of the Faust Symphony from 1854. This gigantic work is complemented by the first of the Mephisto Waltzes, inspired by Nikolaus Lenau's vision of the Faust myth. These two works offer two very different perspectives on Liszt's intense relationship with the character of Faust, and in particular with that of Mephistopheles, around whom many of his compositions are structured. They are key works for understanding Liszt's aesthetic project and the typical nineteenth-century tendency towards a combination of the arts.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Liszt, F.: Symphonic Poems, Vol. 1 - Ce Qu'On Entend Sur L

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Erika Haase continues her ambitious project of recording the most significant etudes of piano literature. This time she has tackled the etudes by Franz Liszt. The daredevil difficulties for the pianist playing these works are legend. She masters them with bravura and enriches them with her own highly sensitive musical note.