I was wondering if anyone on the forum plays any of Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage. I bought a recording not too long ago with Alfred Brendel as the pianist, and I have to say I'm particulary captivated by the pieces in the first book. I find it surprising that they are overlooked, and I feel that they make a wonderful addition to anyone's repetoire.

Regards,

Jerry

Jerry,

Is this the videotape that Brendel made? I remember seeing some of it a while back, and wasn't sure if there was an audio recording as well. You should check out Lazar Berman's recording; I think it's definitive.

Some of these are in the standard repertoire, and others (mostly book three) go untouched. The really popular ones are Vallee d'Obermann (1), Au bord d'un Source (1), the three petrarch sonnets (2), the Dante sonata (2), Venezia e Napoli (2), and Les Jeux d'eau (3).

I have played:

Au Lac de Wallenstadt
Vallee d'Obermann
Sonnetto 104
Les jeux d'eau

Rgds,
Brendan

Jerry,

I guess I'm not sure what you meant by 'overlooked'. I think these pieces are well represented both in the recording media and on the concert scenes. You should easily locate more than a few recordings by different artists of this repertoire in any decent CD outlet. Professional concert pianists program this genre from time to time. Seldom, however, do they program the entire thing. Among the multitude reasons one is that an audience will have trouble listening to all Liszt in one long sitting.

On the other hand you don't often hear this music coming out of the windows down the street where your neighbor's kid is practising. The reason is obvious...

Brendan,

The recording I have is a 2-CD set (made by Phillips) that says is the complete set but excludes Venezia e Napoli (probably because it was published as a supplement after the original set was published). As for Lazar Berman's recording, I haven't seen it around but I am eager to get more than one artist's viewpoint on these pieces.

AndrewG,

Perhaps "overlooked" wasn't the right word. Maybe "underappreciated" fits better. The point I wanted to make was that I've never known of anyone to do the complete set before (the Brendel recording is my first of the set) and I've never seen anyone program any of them in concert, although, living where I do, concerts are not that frequent anyway. But I will keep looking to see if I can find anymore recordings.

As for my favorites of the set, I love Au Lac de Wallenstadt and Sposalizio. I also think that Orage deserves some mention. I think it is highly original, and it is this side of Liszt (the reflective side) that I find endearing.

Regards,

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

Several complete sets should be available through many online sites. Lazar Berman's under DG is a well-known classic. It contains all three years. Jerome Rose's under VoxBox is another set. You then have Jeno Jando under Naxos on 3 singles. Not enough? You might want to look into Leslie Howard under Hyperion who recorded Liszt's complete piano music spreaded across 95 CDs. For Annees de Pelerinage you look for volumes 39 and 43.