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Rubinstein, 1953
Argerich, live broadcast, 1977
Horowitz, 1932

It's interesting to note the total difference in conceptions here. Horowitz is all 'sturm und drang' while Rubinstein brings out the lyrical qualities. Argerich is somewhere in between for me.

This may surprise some, but Rubinstein is my favorite of this group. Please discuss and share your favorite recordings of the piece.

For some reason the early Horowitz recording is the one usually spoken of, but his one from the the 40s/50s (I forget exactly when) is a world beyond that. It's truly frightening.

Got that from Christian Johanssen's site; I need to correct the OP. I take it the last one is the one you refer to?

Likewise, Rubi wins in this little competition, the piece is already dark and gloomy, why not highlight the lyric 'qualities' it has (?), on the other hand, I like this piece much less than FI 'Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude' in the same collection, just that title..., but the music lives up to the expectations aroused by Lamartine's poor poem, it outdoes it luckily, with the result: 1 of Liszt most lyric, unshowy and heartfelt pieces, the Funérailles always leave this ? to me: Chopin's op. 53 can't be beaten, and you, Ferenc, just tried to do that!

Yeah, the studio one. Incidentally, I listened the Rubinstein and it's remarkably similar in many ways to Horowitz's later recording.

I love the way Horowitz carries the martial feeling to the bitter end. Such a majestic moment.

Rubinstein is always my favorite when Liszt is involved. I also enjoy John Ogdon on this one. (unfortunately not on Youtube that I can see) The pathos is nearly visible in his tortured performance.

Not technically live. It was filmed in the studio for CBC, and issued several years back on a DVD with Schumann's concerto and Ravel's Jeux d'eau.

That said, it's never been one of my favourite Argerich performances. The sound is horrid with a liberal amount of mistakes.

IMO, the one to get is Odgon, released on Testament 1133 coupled with other Liszt recordings. I've never heard a finer performance of Liszt's nightmarish exercise in catharsis.

I have the DVD. The Liszt is my least favorite work/performance. Interesting though.

It's also available on Philips Great Pianists of the 20th Century series. Volume 73.

(I'm speaking of the Ogdon)

Big contrasts in these three! I like things in the Rubinstein that are not in the Horowitz, such as the lyrical qualities that you mention, and the controlled passion of the grand central section; and I like things in the Horowitz that are not in the Rubinstein, such as the ominous opening. Liszt wrote intentionally cloudy pedaling and Horowitz respects it. Rubinstein can't or won't believe it and "prettifies" the introduction. Argerich goes halfway, allowing some cloudiness but not daring to go as far as Liszt wrote and Horowitz plays.

Horowitz and Rubinstein do not play the dotted rhythms as written by Liszt. Horowitz fairly consistently changes single dotted rhythms to double dotted ones, whereas Rubinstein stretches them slightly less, more flexibly, and sometimes even straightens them the other way. In contrast, Argerich plays the rhythms Liszt wrote from 1:54 to 3:26 (when she double-dots her first single dotted rhythm). The problem with stretching these rhythms is that Liszt wrote restrained rhythms earlier on precisely so there is some contrast when the music becomes more impassioned and he unleashes the double dotted rhythms. It's pretty obvious intent and careful crafting from the composer. Horowitz and Rubinstein somewhat paint themselves into a corner and then to provide contrast, almost have to triple-dot the later double dotted rhythms. To my taste Rubinstein does a more poetic job of all this, but I still wish they hadn't messed with the music in the first place. I'm very much in favor of the rhythms Liszt wrote.

Horowitz takes quite a few personal liberties that don't spoil his performance for me (e.g. adding ornaments, filling some octaves with extra notes, and not following the cresc. molto near the end).

Argerich plays the main theme quite beautifully and I was looking forward to enjoying her performance, but then... oh. Completely weird LH from 4:01 to 4:40, and blatantly legato instead of staccato bass notes from 6:14 to 6:54, then the following octaves sound to me like an frenetic étude.

I'd be intrigued to get hold of the later Horowitz recording. To my taste, he's closest to the essence of what Liszt wrote, but he could do with more of Rubinstein's poetry.

Interesting breakdown, SlatterFan (BTW: what does that mean?). I, too, noticed some of the great liberties taken with rhythm. Can you recommend another recording that observes Liszt's rhythms?

I really just grabbed the Argerich because it was there...it was my least favorite of the three by far.

Probably not on Youtube, but the dutiful Leslie Howard is pretty true to the score. (at least in this respect)

Horowitz also exaggerates the rhythm of the Lassan in HR2 as do many others.

'Dutiful'. I quite like your choice of word.

I was wrong, however; Here it is, in two parts! If you just want to hear the correct rhythm, click on the second video.

Grieg's Slåtter Op.72 - I'm a fan of them. They are traditional Norwegian folk melodies for the the Hardanger fiddle, transcribed by a violinist friend of Grieg's and arranged very imaginatively for solo piano. I can't recommend any recordings because I have not heard any; I prefer to play them myself. (I put my first name in my signature some time ago so people could use it instead of my screen name, but it doesn't seem to have caught on yet!)


I have very few recordings of Liszt, and I only know some of what is out there by critics' descriptions. (For example, I would have guessed at Leslie Howard being faithful to the score, but I have not heard him.) I have very few classical recordings overall. I enjoy listening to recordings highlighted in this forum to broaden my knowledge.

Thanks for the info Julian! (I must confess that I failed to notice you added your name to your sig; till now) Interesting...I'll have to seek those Grieg pieces out.

As to the Liszt, I'm sure that Howard would probably be one of the most faithful to the score.

There's always Richter's performance....I havent' listened to it much, but it seems that in his notebooks that was one of the only performances he was satisfied with

Part 1 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_YDIi7Rvpg

About the score, I don't know how important it is with Liszt, especially in his earlier works. We know that he improvised all of the time and continually edited his works over and over, and being a performer first and foremost (at least in his earlier years), he would probably understand deviation from the score

You can listen to him in the post directly above the one I just quoted.

You know...I missed that totally because I have a plugin to block Flash objects. Don't get me started on how much I hate hate hate Adobe Flash.


I'll listen, though.