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Apologies if this has been mentioned already in this thread, I don't have the patience anymore today to sift through the rest of it...
I was asked the other day who today's great Liszt performers are, and I couldn't come up with anyone. I have to admit that I could only think of ones from the previous generation like Arrau and Bolet.
I was asked the other day who today's great Liszt performers are, and I couldn't come up with anyone. I have to admit that I could only think of ones from the previous generation like Arrau and Bolet.
Few anymore make Liszt their specialty. Lang Lang claims Liszt to be his pianistic hero but I found his Liszt mostly dull. Hamelin has recorded quite a bit of Liszt and he's still alive.
I will be buying this CD. I listened to Sudbin playing Gaspard de La Nuit on the tube. A level of fluid poetry and sensitivity that I have not hear before. A little limp, but marvelous. To me he is the real deal, like a Cziffra, or a Michelangeli - a genuine artist. His paraphrase on the Chopin Minute Waltz is very good, very artistic. Will be hanging to hear the Liszt.
Wasn't around during Liszt's birthday, but i'll add to the CELEBRATIONS OF LISZT AND CAPS LOCK.
Originally Posted by Mark Nicol
What about the late Liszt works, and the orchestral Tone Poems? How about any ideas on great recordings, for a start.
Well, unfortunately most cycles of the tone poems are very uneven. A list of the best recordings would look something like (IMO) (I put a star next to the works that are, IMO, among Liszt's best orchestral works):
- Eine Faust-Symphonie*: Bernstein/Boston Symphony Orchestra (DVD version is better) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag-02u6eqZA), Muti/Philadelphia Orchestra or Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
- Eine Symphonie zu Dante's Divina Commedia*: Barenboim/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBITTCjsFY4) is great except he, unfortunately, underplays the great climax in the Magnificat, which almost ruins the work for me and leaves it somewhat inconclusive (a common criticism of the work, ever since Wagner supposedly talked Liszt out of depicting Paridoso). I think the other great one is Sinopoli/Staatskapelle Dresden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8huOjLi2YE), although this one might be difficult for first time listeners, with its chaotic cymbals in the first movement, and very slow Purgatorio movement. It's not perfect, but overall it gives a 'full' reading of the work - it's the only Magnificat i've found truly convincing to end the work - and the rest will probably grow on you, as it did on me.
Masur has a reputation as, perhaps, the best -and he is pretty good- but he's more uneven than most. The good thing here is that it includes the most Liszt orchestral works out of any set.
As for the rest of Liszt's late works...well i'm really not sure. Leslie Howard, of course, did a complete traversal of them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WquhK-R7T_M) but I think he's pretty poor here:
Apologies if this has been mentioned already in this thread, I don't have the patience anymore today to sift through the rest of it...
I was asked the other day who today's great Liszt performers are, and I couldn't come up with anyone. I have to admit that I could only think of ones from the previous generation like Arrau and Bolet.
Hamelin is pretty good. His recent CD with the Sonata, B-A-C-H, and the Benediction is tremendous.
Of course, there's Howard. However most would say that's more due to quantity rather than quality.
One of my very favourite Liszt pianists, though, is Stephen Hough. In fact I find Liszt is his best composer. Here are some examples:
Thanks for the replies to my question on current performers. It's actually the first time I've entered the thread and it gave me an opportunity to hear some non-standard Liszt. It hasn't yet grown on me though - maybe I'll try for a bit more.
I am going to print this list out, and listen to it all, bit by bit. Haitink, Karajan, Barenboim - I trust all of them. Jarvi is currently doing a great job on Shos. Did Horowitz play much Liszt? I was talking with Gil Sullivan the other day, and he said he has played on Horowitz's famous 'private Steinway'. Gil said it is no ordinary instrument, that it has a phenomenal capacity for colouring not normally found on your standard Steinways. Still, I'm not mad on Horowitz's interpretation of 'substance works', so technique and tone, even poetry and colour don"t count for everything.
Did Horowitz play much Liszt? I was talking with Gil Sullivan the other day, and he said he has played on Horowitz's famous 'private Steinway'. Gil said it is no ordinary instrument, that it has a phenomenal capacity for colouring not normally found on your standard Steinways. Still, I'm not mad on Horowitz's interpretation of 'substance works', so technique and tone, even poetry and colour don"t count for everything.
He played a fair bit of Liszt, but personally i've never cared for it very much. I think i'm in the minority here -and there are some exceptions- but some of his playing I find to be quite dreadful (see the first Mephisto Waltz). He also made some changes to Liszt's scores at times and most of the time I find them to show a misunderstanding of the music.
Did Horowitz play much Liszt? I was talking with Gil Sullivan the other day, and he said he has played on Horowitz's famous 'private Steinway'. Gil said it is no ordinary instrument, that it has a phenomenal capacity for colouring not normally found on your standard Steinways. Still, I'm not mad on Horowitz's interpretation of 'substance works', so technique and tone, even poetry and colour don"t count for everything.
He played a fair bit of Liszt, but personally i've never cared for it very much. I think i'm in the minority here -and there are some exceptions- but some of his playing I find to be quite dreadful (see the first Mephisto Waltz). He also made some changes to Liszt's scores at times and most of the time I find them to show a misunderstanding of the music.
Horowitz made a horrific recording of Liszt for RCA in the 70's which included the first Mephisto Waltz and the Bm Sonata. It was very sloppy and harsh sounding.
The best of his Liszt can be found on Phillips great pianist series, volume 48. I would ignore the rest.
Last edited by Damon; 10/29/1208:30 PM. Reason: more info
He also made some changes to Liszt's scores at times and most of the time I find them to show a misunderstanding of the music.
Some changes? In the later RCA recordings, the music is almost completely re-written, IMO to no advantage, and making Liszt sound just plain vulgar. They are unlistenable for me.
A much earlier recording on RCA of the 6th Rhapsody is more successful, the moderate re-writing towards the end highly effective.
Earlier in his career, Arrau recorded several of the Rhapsodies. I don't know that they ever made it to CD (perhaps Damon will locate them on YT, I'm a bit pressed for time right now.) I do recall his 9th Rhapsody as an absolutely superb rendition, and methinks that's my favourite of all the Rhapsodies, though I do have a soft spot for 2, 4, 5 and 8.
Some changes? In the later RCA recordings, the music is almost completely re-written, IMO to no advantage, and making Liszt sound just plain vulgar.
Some of that stuff he did on the Mephisto Waltz he pulled from Busoni's transcription of the orchestral version. It might have worked if it wasn't so sloppy.
Some changes? In the later RCA recordings, the music is almost completely re-written, IMO to no advantage, and making Liszt sound just plain vulgar. They are unlistenable for me.
Wow. I've always been somewhat frustrated with Liszt's Dante Sonata. Its first ten minutes are perhaps my very favourite ten minutes in all of piano music but I usually find after that it gets somewhat tedious. Just now, for the first time I heard a performance that convinces me of the whole thing. I don't know why I hadn't heard this before, given the pianist!
Arrau once again confirms his place as my favourite Liszt pianist (Bolet is close). He takes Liszt as seriously as any other composer (as it should be) and plays every note with a purely musical intention - and Arrau's musicianship is as distinguished as any.
yes, I'm really attracted to extreme romanticism. Early on I was a Mahler fan, and his scores really reveal an untempered Romantic at work. On my youtube channel marknicol7 I have a work, Ulysses, the first movement of Symphony in Indigo, which I best describe as Super-Romanticism. It draws from the ethos of Mahler and Wagner.
I get what you mean about freedom, and freedom is the most dangerous thing. Mahler was obliquely critical of Brahms for 'not doing enough' with his themes: More likely, he didn't like Brahms' conservative nature.
Having dinner with a concert pianist, Gil Sullivan, tomorrow night - so I will bring up Liszt, which he plays quite a bit. Would be good to get Alexandre Dossin's views too. Any chance of hearing your playing?
I posted the current sketch for the Chopinesque piece on the site below:
Did you get much out of Sullivan re Liszt (and others)?
Not at this point, no. I've been out of action for a couple years now as far as actually playing the piano goes. There are a few reasons for this, none that I will detail here...I'm in more of a listening stage at the moment.
Thanks for the link to the piece - you've obviously noticed you'll get more of a reception here than on pianostreet. Why did you put it there, might I ask? Regardless, I enjoyed listening to it. I'm not the one to offer much insight but it was certainly enjoyable - higher quality than most of the stuff linked to piano forums! You're obviously a rather accomplished composer, when did you start composing? What's your background in the area?
As for the symphony, well I will be sure to listen to it when I have the time.
So I fought it for a long, but I've finally caught the lizst bug. I've been listening to him non stop this week. The Bm Sonata and the 2nd Ballade are simply mind blowing. Have any of you listened to Valentina Lisita's recording of the ballade? She uses a 97 key bosendorfe piano that is incredible. And she uses those extra low notes at a certain point. It just sounds so so good.
Only just saw this too - good to hear! I hope his music continues to gives you much pleasure, as it has all of us here.
I have heard the Lisitsa. I'm not completely rapt about the performance itself (although I do like it) but the effect of the extra low notes is stupendous indeed.
Now that I've listened to a few other recordings (lisitsa's was the first I heard) hers is no longer my favorite but it's still up there for me. I do love her cadenza though. It's marvelous.
Algernon: I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.
Hi Josh, serious composition started only about 7 years ago, and is very slow, but I have written three books on environmentalism in that period - and have to earn a crust too.
Didn't get the opportunity to talk much Liszt with Gil, although he said Chopin is actually harder to play, because his writing is less idiomatically pianistic. This kind of ties in with my feeling that Liszt tends to let his fingers do a lot of the writing, compared to Chopin, i.e. sheer facility starts to take a hand over cogitated aesthetics. I would liken this, in the jazz field, say, to the essential difference between Miles Davis and James Morrison - although here the difference is far greater - one is largely all about aesthetics, art, and the other is just unbridled facility.
As a composer one must be critical of oneself, and of one's models too. Superfluity, as an artist, was also a hallmark of Liszt's super-romantic nature - and for it, he paid a price. A more judicious artist would have written less, and aimed for more perfected works - (note the previous comments upon the Dante Sonata). But one cannot temper a volcanic outpouring, and so excess and flaws must become part of the flux. I think this, perhaps, indicates also how Liszt is best played. Hence my love of Cziffra. As for Arrau, I find his Chopin was too affected - excessively feminine. He can't nearly match Cziffra, in a work such as the Mephisto. He is not in the same technical league, not, for me, at all in the right aesthetic place. Still, I don't like Cziffra playing anything else, much, but Liszt.
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