Franz Liszt - A Critical Discography

[San Antone]

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.

I think the Beethoven transcriptions are fantastic!  Scherbakov's sound on Naxos is huge and much more resonant than the too closely miked (IMO) sound for Katsaris.  I haven't listened to Biret, but have her 10-CD set on order, so will spending some time with her Liszt.

[kishnevi]

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

Scherbakov was reissued on Steinway's own label (I think in fact it may have been the first release for the label) so it was definitely recorded on a Steinway.
If you need more precision you will need to wait until I get back to Florida and have a chance to dig through my CDs next week.

[jlaurson]

Scherbakov was reissued on Steinway's own label (I think in fact it may have been the first release for the label) so it was definitely recorded on a Steinway.
If you need more precision you will need to wait until I get back to Florida and have a chance to dig through my CDs next week.

And indeed that issue is called: "Symphonies on a Steinway". I think that answers the question alright. :-) Thanks.
Came in one of those unwieldy high sets. Almost as bad as the too-high-and-waaaay-too-deep Berlin Phil sets. Lovely... and useless, filing-wise.

[San Antone]

David Fray
Atma - ACD2 2360 (2006)

On evidence here, David Fray is an excellent musician, technically very well equipped but willing to place his virtuosity entirely in the service of the music. His Liszt Sonata has something of the magisterial quality typical of, say, Claudio Arrau, and an equivalent richness and beauty of tone. Fray manages the most thunderous octave passages without banging, sails through the central fugato with confidence and clarity, and integrates the whole structure very satisfyingly. In the final analysis he is not as exciting as the more volatile Argerich, or Richter perhaps, but this is still playing and interpretation of the first rank, and whether or not you prefer a more purely physical approach there are no dead spots here. (David Hurwitz, Classics Today)

While I generally agree with Hurwitz, there are patches where his concentration flags, e.g. the fugue seems a bit flat and the following sections, which in the hands of performers truly of the "first rank" will swell in dynamism, Fray keeps the level controlled.  Still it's a very good performance by a young pianist and one who I will watch with anticipation of even greater things to come.

[San Antone]

Nikolai Demidenko
Hyperion (1992)

Even in an impossibly competitive field his Liszt Sonata stands out among the most imperious and articulate. His opening is more precisely judged than by Pizarro in his recent and absorbing Collins debut recital (see above) and once the Sonata is under its inflammatory way his virtuosity is of a kind to which few other pianists could pretend. The combination of punishing weight and a skittering, light-fingered agility makes for a compulsive vividness yet his economy in the first cantando espressivo, sung without a trace of luxuriance or indulgence, is no less typical. There are admittedly times when he holds affection at arms length, but just as you are wondering why he commences the central Andante so loudly he at once withdraws into a wholly apposite remoteness or reticence. Earlier, his pedalling at 1'33'' (one of several striking instances) is deeply imaginative. Predictably, the fugue is razor-sharp and in the storming pages just before the retrospective coda the sense of concentration becomes almost palpable. The final climax, too, is snapped off not only with a stunning sense of Lisztian drama but with an even truer sense of Liszt's score and instructions. (Bryce Morrison, Gramophone)

I have to admit, there have been rave reviews in Gramophone for a recording for which I didn't think was anything to rave about.  Not so with Nikolai Demidenko's recording of the Liszt Sonata.  Easily one to join my gold medal group, in fact it is so good I am going to have to revisit my current top choices to see if he might be the best.

[San Antone]

Overview and Analysis of the Liszt Piano Sonata in B Minor, S. 178

It is likely that Liszt derived the idea of thematic transformation as a unifying process from Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, a work which he himself transcribed for piano and orchestra in 1851.  Schubert's themes run through all four movements of the fantasy in varied forms  The four movements are played without a break, and outline a symmetrical key scheme— C, E, A flat, C.  This kind of formal plan held a strong attraction for Liszt, and many of the works of his Weimar period follow this model, besides the Piano Sonata in B Minor also the first piano concerto is another example.

The sonata was published in the spring of 1854 and dedicated to Robert Schumann.  Liszt meant this as a reciprocal gesture to Schumann in response to his being the dedicatee of the latter's Fantasy in C major (1839), a work that Liszt described as sublime.  However, Schumann never knew of the B Minor Sonata's existence since by the time a copy of the newly published work arrived at the Schumann's home in May, 1854, Schumann was already at the asylum at Endenich.

Clara Schumann could have included the work in her repertory, if she had been so inclined, but she chose not to do so. In her diary she described the sonata as "a blind noise ... and yet I must thank him for it. ... It really is too awful." (Litzmann, Berthold, 1902-08)

Unfortunately, Clara's opinion was not atypical.  During this period, and especially in this part of Germany, Liszt was often treated to an unkind dismissal by the musical society.  When the work received its première performance, in Berlin, on January 22, 1857, nearly four years after its composition, it provoked a minor scandal among the conservative critics, from which it recovered with difficulty. Rarely did such great music get off to a less promising start.  (Walker, 1983)

Liszt always felt that the new music he and his group (Chopin, Berlioz, Wagner) were writing needed new forms for expression.  He did not see the sense in merely pouring their "new pudding" into an old form.  Consequently he created new forms which would allow him greater flexibility while still maintaining unity (and echoing the old sonata form in basic structure). This he did with the Sonata, the Concerto in E flat and the Faust Symphony.

The principle which he established was an important one for future generations; the serial technique of Schoenberg, for instance, uses precisely the methods of Liszt's thematic transformation within the framework of an entirely different language, and it is even possible that future twelve-note composers will turn to forms resembling Liszt's rather than those of the classical composers in the search for a type of framework to correspond to their new methods of expression. In any case Liszt's Sonata remains a landmark in the history of nineteenth-century music, not only as a highly successful application of new technical methods, but as a fine, moving and dramatic work in itself. (Buechner and Searle, 2013)

No other work of Liszt has attracted anything like the same amount of scholarly attention as the B-minor Sonata.  The number of divergent theories it has provoked from those of its admirers who feel constrained to search forbidden meanings are many.

The sonata is a musical portrait of the Faust legend , with "Faust," "Gretchen," and "Mephistopheles" themes symbolizing the main characters. (Ott, 1981)
The sonata is autobiographical; its musical contrasts spring from the conflicts within Liszt's own personality. (Raabe, 1931)
The sonata is about the divine and the diabolical; it is based on the Bible and on Milton's Paradise Lost. (Szász, 1984)
The sonata is an allegory set in the Garden of Eden; it deals with the Fall of Man and contains "God," "Lucifer," "Serpent," "Adam," and "Eve" themes. (Merrick, 1987)
The sonata has no programmatic allusions; it is a piece of "expressive form" with no meaning beyond itself— a meaning that probably runs all the deeper because of that fact. (Winklhofer, 1980)
Liszt was generally silent about this work and offered no words of any kind on the question of its program - or lack of it. (Walker, 1983)

The sonata unfolds in approximately 30 minutes of unbroken music. While its four distinct movements are rolled into one, the entire work is encompassed within the traditional Classical sonata scheme— exposition, development, and recapitulation.  Liszt has effectively composed a sonata within a sonata, which is part of the work's uniqueness.

Liszt was very economical with his thematic material, indeed, the very first page contains the three motivic ideas that provide the content, transformed throughout, for nearly all that follows.

RTRH

[San Antone]

Sergei Edelmann (2011)
Triton - EXCL00038 (SACD)

It is a shame that this recording by Sergei Edelmann has flown under the radar of all the classical music review magazines. I could find nothing in Fanfare, Gramophone, Classics Today, MusicWeb International, and the BBC Classical-music.com. 

Born in Lvov, Ukraine in 1960, Sergei Edelmann was taught to play by his father, Alexander Edelmann, a renowned pianist and teacher who had links to Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter. His BMG Classics/RCA Red Seal CDs feature recordings of both Mendelssohn concertos and the Strauss Burlesque, and his series of solo recordings of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Prokofiev, have garnered enthusiastic critical acclaim. In recent times he has made several recordings for Triton including discs devoted to the music of Schumann (EXCL00025), and Chopin (OVCT00058).

His performance of the Liszt sonata rings with technical command and interpretative polish. His performance will not challenge Argerich, Hamelin, Demidenko or Zimerman, but Edelmann turns in a solid nothing-to-be-ashamed-of performance all the same.  Better than average, however, at over 32 minutes the performance seems too slow, mainly because of his luxurious stretching of time during the andante sostenuto section (something to which many also fall prey) and his too careful playing of the octave passages.  The piano is beautifully recorded in a super audio CD.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

As far as the sonata, no question it's a warhorse. When a pianist sets out to record it these days, there's really only one question: how to make it fresh? Well, if you're Sophie Pacini, the simple solution is to take it to Martha Argerich and see what she thinks!!

Well, that's not quite the whole story, as the accompanying booklet to this CD recounts. Apparently one day the stars aligned themselves just right and Pacini and Argerich bumped into each other while staying in the same hotel. At some point Pacini asked if she might play for Argerich (apparently on a piano in the hotel) and Argerich obliged. Impressed, Argerich then asked Pacini to play, you guessed it, the warhorse.

From this a budding friendship emerged and Argerich has since invited Pacini to play at her festival in Lugano as well as giving Pacini a little tutelage in the choice of repertoire she should record (Schumann's piano concerto for Onyx, as it turns out).

How's that for a head start in a crowded field?

HOW...

...EVER...

There's still the matter of the piece itself and if Pacini even REALLY knows her way around it. Unconditionally, she does.

This is one mighty performance. There's not a single bar in this performance that sounds hackneyed. From the very...first...notes...there's the sense of something unique unfolding. The poetry is apparent.

Onward into the piece. Suddenly all technical hurdles great and small reveal themselves. It's make or break time. Much of what Pacini is all about will be revealed here. It's merciless. Can she tackle/tame it? Thankfully, she can.

Next the big slow down. She's already shown something of her poetic side in the opening. But this is different terrain. Great vistas open up and now a pianist is asked to fill in the spaces with his/her meddle. Again, no place for the timid. Can she cross the divide? As it turns out, she can. Poetry everywhere.

Then, musical sparks anew. Wave after wave of sparks, asserting themselves between the mischievous gear shifts into the slow lane. Impressive. What agility!

On to the end. By this time I didn't want it to end. But HOW would it end? Just like it opened, as it turns out. Soft, gentle, whispery, laid right to rest.

Ya, I really want to hear this one again!




[asin]B008VOJGPW[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Well, that was enjoyable play-by-play 

[Mandryka]

I listened again to Pletnev's 1st recording of the big sonata.  I think there's something quite distinctive going on there, and it has to do with the phrasing and the silences. I also listened to the second recording, which seems more restrained and more nuanced in terms of colours.

I also listened to the live Curzon again, which is like he's bearly able to control himself because he's so overwhelmed, it made me think of Furtwangler/Fischer Brahms 2 for some reason.

I also listened to Markus Groh - someone on another forum mentioned him. It's very distinctive because it's almost classical, objective, expressive enough but very controlled, like the inverse of Curzon 61.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Well, that was enjoyable play-by-play 

Thanks, Karl. Glad it could be of use to at least one.

[San Antone]

As far as the sonata, no question it's a warhorse. When a pianist sets out to record it these days, there's really only one question: how to make it fresh? Well, in the case of Sophie Pacini, simply take it to Martha Argerich and see what she thinks!!

Well, that's not quite the whole story, as the accompanying booklet to this CD goes on to relate. Apparently one day the stars aligned just right and Pacini and Argerich bumped into each other while staying in the same hotel. At some point Pacini asked if she might play for Argerich (apparently on a piano in the hotel) and Argerich obliged. Impressed, Argerich then asked Pacini to play, you guessed it, the warhorse.

From this a budding friendship emerged and Argerich has since invited Pacini to play at her festival in Lugano as well as giving Pacini a little tutelage in the choice of repertoire she should record (Schumann's piano concerto for Onyx, as it turns out).

How's that for a head start in a crowded field?

HOW...

...EVER...

There's still the matter of the piece itself and if Pacini even REALLY knows her way around it. Unconditionally, she does.

This is one mighty performance. There's not a single bar in this performance that sounds hackneyed. From the very...first...notes...there's the sense of something unique unfolding. The poetry is apparent.

Onward into the piece. Suddenly all technical hurdles great and small reveal themselves. It's make or break time. Much of what Pacini is all about will be revealed here. It's merciless. Can she tackle/tame it? Thankfully, she can.

Next the big slow down. She's already shown something of her poetic side in the opening. But this is different terrain. Great vistas open up and now a pianist is asked to fill in the spaces with his/her meddle. Again, no place for the timid. Can she cross the divide? As it turns out, she can. Poetry everywhere.

Then, sparks anew. Wave after wave of sparks, asserting themselves between every jarring gear shift into the slow lane. Impressive. What agility!

On to the end. By this time I didn't want it to end. But HOW would it end? Just like it opened, as it turns out. Soft, gentle, whispery, laid right to rest.

Ya, I really want to hear this one again!




[asin]B008VOJGPW[/asin]

Thanks for that - I had heard that story and her recording is in my to-listen pile.  The competition is so intense it will be interesting to see if I agree that hers is a standout performance.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I also listened to Markus Groh - someone on another forum mentioned him. It's very distinctive because it's almost classical, objective, expressive enough but very controlled.....

This description reminds me of the Gilels version on RCA. Russian pianist, yes, but proportion is the name of the game.

In conception it's miles away from the Pacini's. But there's no doubt he makes it his own.

[San Antone]

I just listened to both Sophie Pacini and Polina Leshchenko, both young female pianists who have been promoted by Martha Argerich.  Leshchenko's first CD was issued as "Martha Argerich Presents."

I will collect my thoughts and post more indepth tomorrow, but already I know I prefer the Leshchenko recording (2008).  I will need to go back and re-listen to Khatia Buniatishvili, but I don't think either Pacini or Leshchenko outplays her; odd as that may sound.

Re Markus Groh, I recently saw a unflattering review of his recording but haven't listen to it yet.

[Mandryka]

Re Markus Groh, I recently saw a unflattering review of his recording but haven't listen to it yet.

I'm curious to see the review if you'd let me know where it is.

[Mandryka]

This description reminds me of the Gilels version on RCA. Russian pianist, yes, but proportion is the name of the game.

Yes, I can see that, but Groh is a more thoroughgoing denial of the bravura/romantic conception than Gilels RCA.

I'm not sure about this, but I think part of the reason is that  there's something about Gilels' tone, the Russian way he has of digging deep into the keys, which makes it sound less challenging and more romantic than Groh. Voicing too, Gilels may be more melody/acompaniment, Groh more open to other voice leading ideas.

I don't want to get too distracted by Liszt, I have other listening priorities, so these ideas may be just shallow impressions.

[San Antone]

I'm curious to see the review if you'd let me know where it is.

Sorry, I had him mixed up with Mikhail Rudy.  Listening to Groh right now.

[San Antone]

Sophie Pacini
Avie Music - AVI8553269
Presto Classical
After a chance meeting in a hotel in Italy, pianist Sophie Pacini has become firm friends and concert partner with Martha Argerich who has said of her performance style: "You very much remind me of myself." (Fanfare)

Impressive praise from someone who has possibly given us the best recorded performance of the Liszt Piano Sonata in B Minor, however, Argerich was generous and gracious to younger pianists and on more than one occasion offered her mentorship.  This is not to take away anything from the performance by Sophie Pacini, which is very good indeed.

It should go without saying that all pianists who record this work do so with the requisite technical mastery.  But that is the minimal standard.  Once the technical demands, which are prodigious, are achieved, the next hurdle, which is the more difficult, concerns the musical demands. 

A pianist can perform this work with technical perfection, i.e. finger perfect, thrilling for sure; or they can play the work with virtuosic abandon, i.e. taking risks which may push them beyond their technical control.  They cannot do both except on rare occasions, e.g. Martha Argerich's amazing recording.  Ms. Pacini chose the former path: finger perfect but not playing with the demonic abandon that defines the greatest performances.

The Liszt Sonata is unfortunately a very big disappointment. Predictably, Pacini has no trouble negotiating the score's myriad obstacles, but beyond virtuoso sizzle I hear little in this performance that will make me remember it. Put simply, ... Pacini barely scratches the surface of this monumental work's monumental spiritual content. (Fanfare, Radu A. Lelutiu)

This is the first review by Mr. Lelutiu I've read and I don't know much about his Liszt opinions, he did make a derogatory comment about Argerich I surely don't share.  And to be fair, those comments were made after raves for the two Schumann pieces on the same recording -  but I do share his opinion of how she handles the Liszt.  Pacini turns in a very good performance, but there are too many better ones out there to single hers out.





Markus Groh
Avie - AV2097
Here is Liszt playing of rare passion and musical integrity. There is no tip-toeing round the great B minor Sonata, no imposition of self-conscious effects or losing the thread through over-interpretation. Over and above its masterful construction and ingenious thematic interplay, it is a virtuoso vehicle that should thrill the listener - and Groh scintillates. More thunder and fireworks follow in Liszt's solo version of his Totentanz, its transcendent difficulties brushed aside with aplomb and exuberant relish. (Gramophone Magazine, July 2006)

I generally agree but he seems to run out of steam after the fugue during the passages that demand just the opposite.  The Stretto quasi Presto especially seems exhausted and it is the place where a pianist like Richter brings the music to a level of almost a psychological break down before the final cathartic grandioso theme's return and the final apotheosis.

There is a growing number of young pianists who have recorded this work, and most seem to have the same defect: not enough abandon.





Polina Leschenko
Avanti Classic 1027
Polina Leschenko's Liszt Sonata may be the most stunning—in its sheer clangtint, incandescent volatility, or revelatory animation, its interpretive compulsion—since the 1932 Horowitz recording changed the lives of pianists everywhere. Think I've spent another debauched weekend with Hyperbole? Hear Leschenko and see if you don't feel more than a little tipsy afterward—and desperately inclined to ransack your repertoire of superlatives! (Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare)

Approximation will not do. And certainly not in a great work like the Sonata, about which the least said the better. To ride roughshod over Liszt's agogics and ignore important structural devices (at 6'26", for instance, when the left hand has the main subject in counterpoint) can be construed as careless, but when faced with a litany of quite perverse ideas and frequent rhythmic instability, then Miss Leschenko really should go back and think it through again. (Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone)

This klind of divergence of opinion by experienced reviewers signals one thing to me  – Leschenko's is not your run of the mill Liszt sonata.  And, in fact, it is quite perverse in some regards.  But for me that is a good thing.  The last thing we need is yet another technically perfect performance.  If a pianist is not going to take some risks and do something with the music that is individual, then really, why bother?

Leschenko's performance is audacious and will ruffle your feathers.  Highly enjoyable nonetheless.

[Leo K.]

I really appreciate and love this discussion. Aces! Hopefully I'll have more to add when I listen to my newest Liszt sonata acquisitions.

[Mandryka]

See what you think of this one from Tatyana Pikaizen, which I liked because of the timbres, percussive.

http://www.youtube.com/v/RST0juG46X8