Franz Liszt - A Critical Discography

[Mandryka]

Thanks for pointing out the Hamelin B minor which is nowhere online but fortunately my library had it. This is an outstanding performance and maybe the best I've heard. Considering that I have Argerich, Richter and Cziffra this is not faint praise. I do have a particular soft spot for the Cziffra which I hear as a very deep and profound reading and one where he resists the temptation for a purely virtuosic display.

This thread has prompted me to listen to the Transcendental Etudes. Ovchinnikov is currently in my CD player and this is an outstanding performance. Cziffra's  is mind bogglingly amazing, he really lets rip as does Kemal Gekic who I also have. But pride of place for me is Claudio Arrau's version for Philips. While it doesn't lack in bravura, it goes beyond that to plumb the depths that surely Liszt intended.

I can let you have a live recording of Hamelin doing it, Montreal in 2011. It also has a pretty successful K310.

[San Antone]

One interesting thing about the Liszt sonata is the ending

Cortot used to own the Liszt manuscript with the original ending. It's owned now by Robert Owens Lehman, who left it on deposit at the Morgan Library.

Claudio Arrau wrote about the original manuscript:

"Even from the outward appearance of the manuscript, the artistic seriousness with which the composer approached this work may readily be seen. Apart from corrected shorter passages which follow immediately upon crossed-out sections, there are numerous pages with extensive revisions which Liszt probably made only when much of that which followed had already been written down. In those cases he pasted newly drafted half-pages or more over the original text. Page 21 was completely deleted. Liszt replaced it with a new enlarged section, which comprises both pages 21 and 21 Bis. The sheet of paper containing these newly written pages (21 and 21 Bis) now seamlessly adjoins the preceding part. Of special interest is the conclusion of the work. Here Liszt made a revision which was not merely technical but changed completely the expressive content of the section. An originally planned imposing conclusion of 25 measures rising to a threefold forte was replaced by an ending 32 measures longer which gradually fades away to PPP."

Gregor Benko gave Nyiregyhazi a facsimile of the manuscript. He recorded the Liszt sonata San Francisco, but I don't know if he recorded the original ending.

Is the Nyiregyhazi recording available? Has anyone recorded the original ending? Why did Liszt change the ending?

I have always been very thankful that Liszt chose to re-write the ending, doing away with the grandiose ending and choosing (in a stroke of genius) to end it with the ethereal pianissimo triads.  That is magical.  I have zero interest in hearing the discarded version and would hope that no one records it.

[Mandryka]

Yes, I can imagine that.

I think Hough does the original ending on his ipad app, I haven't heard it yet.

[San Antone]

Marc-André Hamelin
Hyperion (2011)



Marc-André Hamelin has recorded an Apollonian interpretation that scales the mountain of this work with conviction and class.  The critics have been virtually universal in their praise:

"If you plan to buy a Liszt piano CD during the composer's bicentenary, make straight for this tumultuous recital. Hamelin is a master of the rhetorical flourish — amply displayed in the Fantasy and Fugue...He gives us filigree tenderness too and, in Venezia e Napoli, picturesque atmospherics. Finally, there is the epic Piano Sonata, with composer and pianist united in passion, structural control and visionary spirit." The Times, 24th April 2011 ****

"while Hamelin's technique is superhuman and magisterial, there is never a question of virtuosity for its own sake...the rapidity of Hamelin's repeated notes in the sun-drenched Tarantella is scarcely believable, his poetic poise and noble refinement elsewhere no less notable...Even so, pride of place must go to the Sonata, where Hamelin tempers Liszt's rhetoric with a measure of dignity and restraint...In short, this is a pianist to trump all aces." Gramophone Magazine, May 2011

"Needless to say, Hamelin's performance of Liszt's Piano Sonata yields nothing in transcendental virtuosity...He opens with a very dramatic reading of the Fantasie and Fugue on B-A-C-H, with total clarity in articulation and voice-leading...Similar vigour and energy is to be found in evocative and exultant readings of Venezia e Napoli, highly characterized and full of shimmering colours" International Record Review, April 2011

If Martha Argerich's performance was a combination of athletic prowess and a dancer's finesse which produced an enormous amount of kinetic excitement, Marc-André Hamelin's performance is more akin to a great orator rousing the audience to inspired heights of possibility.  Think Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech".  I choose the analogy of an orator because Liszt's rhetoric in the sonata is something that some pianists simply do not execute nearly as well as playing the work as a bravura showpiece. 

The music is a endless variation of only three themes (some count five) which all appear in the first page of the work.  Each measure of the work will have one of these themes as the thread that holds the entire form together.  Hamelin never allows that thread to become obscured by the passagework, and this is important, he does this in such a masterful manner that the rhetoric takes on a momentum and rising energy of its own.

Liszt certainly knew what he was about with this work, and if the performer will only execute what Liszt has written the work cannot help but succeed.  Trouble is, a pianist must possess a prodigious technique in order to control the music and not simply allow the passagework to dominate.

Marc-Andre Hamelin possesses such a technique, as well as, the intellectual rigor to express the larger rhetorical content.  There are a few bothersome details.  There are some inexplicable hesitations similar to the kind when you cannot think of a word and some other agogic indulgences.  But this is quibbling about an overwhelmingly successful performance of a difficult work, both from a technical and musical aspect.

Hamelin has presented us with one of, if not the, best accounts of this work in recent years.  Simply stunning.

[San Antone]

Vladimir Horowitz
Presto Classical (1932)
Amazon.US (1932)
We are now accustomed to the idea that every pianist with a bit of technique and a liking for romantic music wants to have a go at the B minor sonata, but Horowitz was almost a prophet preaching in the wilderness in 1932. As Jonathan Summers's notes tell us, most critics back then were too busy savaging the music even to notice the performance. Today we can recognise that Horowitz's quite fantastic technical command is totally at the service of the music whose grandeur and poetry is uniquely held in balance. An indispensable performance. (Christopher Howell, MusicWebInternational, 6/03/2003)

That about says it; this Horowitz recording is indispensable for anyone interested in the music of Franz Liszt. 

You can hear a lot of Horowitz in Richter; the furiousness, the desire to play some of the right hand passagework as fast as humanly possible; the crashing low notes; and the command of the overarching structure.  It is a shame that neither Horowitz (because of the age of the recording) nor Richter (because all his recordings are from live concerts) has a record of their monumental performances in good sound.  Nevertheless, your ears do adapt to the noise and you can't help but appreciate Horowitz's achievement.

There are several transfers available of this 1932 performance, but I think the Naxos recording from their Great Pianists series is the best.  There has been only a minimal attempt at noise reduction leaving it with more hiss than on some others, but the sound of the piano is the best I've heard and the performance comes across much better.

Horowitz revisited the work in 1977, but that performance is no where near as compelling as this one from 1932. 

[Mandryka]

 Have you heard Cortot's?

[San Antone]

Have you heard Cortot's?

Yes; from YouTube, but need to revisit it along with a few other of the older recordings.  I am thinking of buying one of the box sets of his recordings.  There's also Ernst Levy (Spotify), Arthur Friedheim (YouTube) which is a piano roll from 1905 the oldest I've found, Clifford Curzon (YouTube), and Gunnar Johansen (YouTube).  Johansen's is not as old as the others but done under less than ideal audio circumstances.  I am planning on covering these in an "historical recordings" post.

Thanks.

[Mandryka]

Yes; from YouTube, but need to revisit it along with a few other of the older recordings.  I am thinking of buying one of the box sets of his recordings.  There's also Ernst Levy (Spotify), Arthur Friedheim (YouTube) which is a piano roll from 1905 the oldest I've found, Clifford Curzon (YouTube), and Gunnar Johansen (YouTube).  Johansen's is not as old as the others but done under less than ideal audio circumstances.  I am planning on covering these in an "historical recordings" post.

Thanks.

Yes I'd forgotten about Curzon who did a really good one live in Edinburgh in 1961, on BBC Legends. I think the studio recording was less successful.

[San Antone]

Yes I'd forgotten about Curzon who did a really good one live in Edinburgh in 1961, on BBC Legends. I think the studio recording was less successful.

You prefer the Edinburgh over the studio recording two years later?  Peter J. Rabinowitz in Fanfare disagreed (not that he is an infallible authority) when he reviewed that BBC disc:

Curzon is normally an elegant if low-key player; but this high-speed Edinburgh assault on the Liszt Sonata (faster, overall, than even Argerich's famous DG account) finds him floundering as he pushes himself well beyond his capacity. It's not simply the fistfuls of wrong notes or even the nine measures or so he drops when he fumbles the fugue. Over and above that, the performance is marred by poor balances (the melody is buried by the accompanying chords in the first statement of the Grandioso theme), odd choices of articulation, and a frequent disregard for the music's rhetorical structure (note, for instance, how he plays down the contrasts between the chorale passages and the recitatives, measures 297 ff). Yes, there are moments of impressive fury and infectious passion, as well as episodes of seductive beauty (the pages before that disastrous fugue are set out magnificently)—but on the whole, this is no match for Curzon's studio account two years later, and it does no honor to his reputation.

I've only heard the studio version, and I consider it a very good account; I will need to find the BBC disc and give it a listen.

[jlaurson]

While the Lisztians are all in one room: Does anyone have information as to the pianos used in the various recordings of the LvB Transcriptions of the Sonatas?


Katsaris = Steinway, Bechstein, Allen (thanks Mandryka!)
HMU Various = Pludermacher, Badura-Skoda et al. Steinways, apparently. Not certain about Badura-Skoda.
Hungaroton Various = ??
Scherbakov = Steinway ?? Maybe the Naxos Music Library will help out.
Biret = Steinway! (thanks Mandryka) The picture on the covers shows one; the liner notes of the IBA edition v.9 say nothing.
Howard = Steinway (thanks mc ukrneal)
Martynov = 1837 Erard & ~1867 Blüthner

[San Antone]

While the Lisztians are all in one room: Does anyone have information as to the pianos used in the various recordings of the LvB Transcriptions of the Sonatas?


Katsaris = Steinway???
HMU Various = Pludermacher, Badura-Skoda et al. Steinways, apparently. Not certain about Badura-Skoda.
Hungaroton Various =
Scherbakov = Steinway Maybe the Naxos Music Library will help out.
Biret = Steinway??? The picture on the covers shows one; the liner notes of the IBA edition v.9 say nothing.
Howard = Steinway???
Martynov = 1837 Erard & ~1867 Blüthner

Sorry; can't help. 

[mc ukrneal]

While the Lisztians are all in one room: Does anyone have information as to the pianos used in the various recordings of the LvB Transcriptions of the Sonatas?


Katsaris = Steinway???
HMU Various = Pludermacher, Badura-Skoda et al. Steinways, apparently. Not certain about Badura-Skoda.
Hungaroton Various =
Scherbakov = Steinway Maybe the Naxos Music Library will help out.
Biret = Steinway??? The picture on the covers shows one; the liner notes of the IBA edition v.9 say nothing.
Howard = Steinway???
Martynov = 1837 Erard & ~1867 Blüthner

Howard is Steinway.

[San Antone]

George-Emmanuel Lazaridis
Linn ECHO - BKD282 (2006)

George-Emmanuel Lazaridis is a young, London-based Greek pianist whose Liszt recital enters a crowded, fiercely competitive field. Even so, his performance of the B minor Sonata, one of the great milestones of keyboard literature, is of such drama, power and concentration that it holds its own even when you stop to consider tirelessly celebrated recordings by Horowitz (his early 1932 version), Argerich, Brendel and Zimerman. I should also add that it is sufficiently personal and poetically committed (notably in the Sonata's still centre) that it defies comparison, speaking on its own highly individual yet unfailingly serious terms. The opening octaves are prolonged like muffled timpani strokes rather than a bleakly familiar staccato alternative and the fugue commencing the last section (so often a trouble-spot) is awe-inspiringly cogent and propulsive. (Jed Distler, Classics Today)

Add to that the beautiful audio of the Linn recording - and there's not much to dislike.  Somewhat slower than average, and he will not knock Hamelin or Argerich off my top tier, Lazaridis is a pianist to watch, especially when he is playing works from the Romantic literature.

[jlaurson]

Howard is Steinway.

Thanks!

[Mandryka]

According to Robert Layton's review in Gramophone

"The Fifth was the first of the Beethoven symphonies Liszt transcribed, at a time (1837) when this revolutionary masterpiece was not in common currency in the concert hall. Cyprien Katsaris has left it to the last in his cycle, not surprisingly since this is the work that really strains at the medium and bursts at the seams, even more than the Eroica or surprisingly, the Ninth. In his first recording (the Pastoral) in 1981 he played an instrument by Mark Allen which he used for all but Nos. 1-3 (Bechstein) and in this he uses a Steinway."

Horrible performances

According to Idil's website


"An almost impossible task had now been set for Biret. Precious time was lost with the stoppage of work and only three months remained to complete the recording and editing of the tapes. As outlined in the enclosed newspaper article, after six weeks of intensive preparation, four more symphonies were recorded in March. Following a further ten days preparation the last two symphonies were recorded in early April. Since the Steinway concert grand piano had to be brought to the location, the recordings were done  on consecutive days  – without free days in between – to keep costs to a minimum."

Wonderful performances.

[Mandryka]

George-Emmanuel Lazaridis
Linn ECHO - BKD282 (2006)

George-Emmanuel Lazaridis is a young, London-based Greek pianist whose Liszt recital enters a crowded, fiercely competitive field. Even so, his performance of the B minor Sonata, one of the great milestones of keyboard literature, is of such drama, power and concentration that it holds its own even when you stop to consider tirelessly celebrated recordings by Horowitz (his early 1932 version), Argerich, Brendel and Zimerman. I should also add that it is sufficiently personal and poetically committed (notably in the Sonata's still centre) that it defies comparison, speaking on its own highly individual yet unfailingly serious terms. The opening octaves are prolonged like muffled timpani strokes rather than a bleakly familiar staccato alternative and the fugue commencing the last section (so often a trouble-spot) is awe-inspiringly cogent and propulsive. (Jed Distler, Classics Today)

Add to that the beautiful audio of the Linn recording - and there's not much to dislike.  Somewhat slower than average, and he will not knock Hamelin or Argerich off my top tier, Lazaridis is a pianist to watch, especially when he is playing works from the Romantic literature.

I enjoyed this one probably more than Argerich and Hamelin, partly because of the beauty of tone. Today I listened to Annie Fischer play it and what she does with timbres is really interesting -- percussive and very colourful. I thought this helped to separate the musical lines and make it sound a bit less like a sentimental romantic outpouring .

I should say that I agree that Argerich is thrilling, thanks for making me go to it again.

[jlaurson]

According to Robert Layton's review in Gramophone

"The Fifth was the first of the Beethoven symphonies Liszt transcribed, at a time (1837) when this revolutionary masterpiece was not in common currency in the concert hall. Cyprien Katsaris has left it to the last in his cycle, not surprisingly since this is the work that really strains at the medium and bursts at the seams, even more than the Eroica or surprisingly, the Ninth. In his first recording (the Pastoral) in 1981 he played an instrument by Mark Allen which he used for all but Nos. 1-3 (Bechstein) and in this he uses a Steinway."

Horrible performances

According to Idil's website


"An almost impossible task had now been set for Biret. Precious time was lost with the stoppage of work and only three months remained to complete the recording and editing of the tapes. As outlined in the enclosed newspaper article, after six weeks of intensive preparation, four more symphonies were recorded in March. Following a further ten days preparation the last two symphonies were recorded in early April. Since the Steinway concert grand piano had to be brought to the location, the recordings were done  on consecutive days  – without free days in between – to keep costs to a minimum."

Wonderful performances.

Brilliant. Thanks much. But really... you think Katsaris' are "horrible performances"? And Biret's "wonderful"?

Lest I am being played tricks on by my memory, I find Katsaris satisfying above all others, save Martynov, and Biret pedestrian, bordering competent. (Or was that the Scriabin, which sounded so awful?)

[San Antone]

I enjoyed this one probably more than Argerich and Hamelin, partly because of the beauty of tone. Today I listened to Annie Fischer play it and what she does with timbres is really interesting -- percussive and very colourful. I thought this helped to separate the musical lines and make it sound a bit less like a sentimental romantic outpouring .

I should say that I agree that Argerich is thrilling, thanks for making me go to it again.

I have Fischer's recording cued up and will report on it soon.  Yes, this Lazaridis disc is very good, I wish all piano recordings could sound like it; not to take away any from his playing. 

You know, I think Liszt has gotten a bum rap about the "romantic outpouring" charge (we will probably never agree on this).  This work is very rigorously composed, no padding - what attracted me to it from the outset was how he spun out of the limited amount of thematic material a 30 minute work that is rock solid.

[San Antone]

Brilliant. Thanks much. But really... you think Katsaris' are "horrible performances"? And Biret's "wonderful"?

Lest I am being played tricks on by my memory, I find Katsaris satisfying above all others, save Martynov, and Biret pedestrian, bordering competent. (Or was that the Scriabin, which sounded so awful?)

I find Katsaris (peculiar I was thinking of his B minor sonata); his transcriptions are very strong, although I am not a fan of the doubling.  Scherbakov is the stilll the one I like.

[Mandryka]

I liked Biret more than Katsaris because she's slower, more reflective than virtuoso. I haven't heard Scherbakov. I'm not really into the music.