Franz Liszt - A Critical Discography

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Thanks for those positive comments about the Beethoven on Live Classics, which I've just ordered -- I'm interested in Richter's music making from the last 10 years or so of his life.

That Live Classics disc with Beethoven's op.109 and op.110 is a fine fine memorial. The Mozart is good, too. He can be spotty at this stage of his career but I can't think of anything that's an outright failure on disc. He's definitely "matured", though.

It's a long time since I listened to that CD with the Brahms sonata, I remember being disappointed by the Brahms (I've learned early Brahms is just not for me) and not very interested in the music by Liszt there. But I do remember that Harmonies du Soir was exceptionally intense. It used to be one of the recordings I played the most often. It's a very good example of a side of Richter's art.

There are definitely works by Brahms I enjoy more than his first two sonatas but I find them quite good listens in their own right. And the Liszt here I find overall wonderful. 

Re the Ogdon discussed above, he was very variable but sometimes his recitals were extrarordinary. The Liszt recording that is completely astonishing for its virtuosity and sheer elan,  is a concert from Japan, publishe about four years ago now, in the Liszt year. It's one of the few things which have helped me see why some people really rate him.

Do you have a link for that one, perchance?

[Mandryka]

Here's the Ogdon recital I like

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Playlist?source=CTRV&cat=76429&label=RCA

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Here's the Ogdon recital I like

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Playlist?source=CTRV&cat=76429&label=RCA

Thank you!

[Pat B]

That Live Classics disc with Beethoven's op.109 and op.110 is a fine fine memorial. The Mozart is good, too. He can be spotty at this stage of his career but I can't think of anything that's an outright failure on disc. He's definitely "matured", though.

trovar.com indicates that the Live Classics disc with both 109 and 110, plus Mozart, is from 1991.10.27 at Kiel. There is a different Live Classics disc with 110 from 1992.5.16 at Munich (with Haydn, Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel -- but no 109 or Mozart).

I think this is the 1991 one and this is the 1992 one.

Could you confirm which one you're talking about? Sorry to be pedantic but your endorsement piqued my interest and I want to make sure I wishlist the right one.

[San Antone]

Nelson Freire (1972)
SONY 88875002282
Liszt's Sonata in B Minor, a work Freire didn't record again, although Decca released a very fine Liszt recital for the composer's bicentennial year that bears the fruits of a sage pianist's lifelong experience. The fact that the young Freire's sonata is almost as refined, deliberately avoiding Horowitz's high-wire bravado, indicates that this is the pianist's view of Liszt, preferring a rich sonority and measured phrasing to carry the day. His account is also admirable for its poetry and for how the episodes are so smoothly joined. (Fanfare)

Nelson Freire and Martha Argerich are linked in my mind as pianists with great technique and great capacity for passion in their playing.  They are friends and have recorded and performed together.  Argerich recorded the Liszt sonata in 1971 and Freire's came out a year later.  At once I am impressed with a similar approach to the work; Freire does not quite achieve the brilliance Argerich brings to her performance, still, his is nearly as good.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

trovar.com indicates that the Live Classics disc with both 109 and 110, plus Mozart, is from 1991.10.27 at Kiel. There is a different Live Classics disc with 110 from 1992.5.16 at Munich (with Haydn, Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel -- but no 109 or Mozart).

I think this is the 1991 one and this is the 1992 one.

Could you confirm which one you're talking about? Sorry to be pedantic but your endorsement piqued my interest and I want to make sure I wishlist the right one.

No worries! Anything to help sort out the burgeoning, topsy-turvy Richterverse!

Yes, it's the disc in your first link. Hadn't noticed before but apparently there's a misprint on the back cover of this disc which gives the year as 1992. But in the booklet itself 1991 is listed as the year. The part about October 27 apparently isn't in doubt no matter what the year.

Here's something from Youtube which purports to be the Op.110 from October 1991:



https://www.youtube.com/v/B_UR1VvxCFM

[San Antone]

Cyprien Katsaris (1973)
PIANO 21 041-N
Granted, by the stopwatch, this 29-minute reading is fairly centrist in overall timing. But it certainly doesn't feel centrist. Rather, the overall effect is vertiginous—passages of almost terrifying impetus made even more ferocious by the extremity with which Katsaris plays many of the slower. Yet for all the brinksmanship, for all the improvisatory bravura, there's never a sense of approximation.  And in part because he has such a good sense of the music's emotional architecture, the music has a consistent sense of direction.  (Fanfare)

It is tragic that such a magnificent performance of the Liszt sonata is only available in horrible sound.  Everything I look for is there in this Katsaris live performance from 1973: the sparkling, brilliant, passage work and octaves, the smoldering, poetic, evocative playing of the songlike sections, and a presentation of the architecture that leaves you convinced by the rhetoric of the composition.  Aside from just a few quirky interpretative choices, and the fugue section overly rushed, this is a performance that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Zimerman and Argerich.

[Pat B]

No worries! Anything to help sort out the burgeoning, topsy-turvy Richterverse!

Thanks for the clarification.

I re-listened to that RCA Liszt from 1988, and you're right, it's a good one. I think I liked it better on its own (vs. listening after the Brahms on the same disc).

[San Antone]

André Laplante (1995)
ANALEKTA FLEUR DE LYS FL 2 3030
Laplante's solid technique and stolid muscularity stand surety for these somewhat dilatory, pedestrian performances. Pedestrian is a step beyond toilsome, but Laplante exhibits neither sufficient élan to carry us away, nor the compelling grasp of detail which might bid us stay. En Rêve and Nuages gris are peculiarly wan, though this owes as much to the recessed recording in which they're nearly lost in large hall ambience. In the upshot, closely informed liner notes by Liszt's magisterial biographer, Alan Walker, are the best part of this production. (Fanfare)

I am more impressed with this recording than the reviewer for Fanfare.  The magisterial beginning fits the work, and the gradual build up to the Grandioso theme grows out of it in a tempered and effective manner.  LaPlante is helped in all this by the sumptuous sound of the Analekta recording - one of the best sounding recordings of this work I've heard.  LaPlante's is an expansive reading, lasting almost 33 minutes, but given his approach, there is no sense of dragging, possibly just a bit of lingering too long during the Andante sostenuto and Quasi Adagio.  But I'd rather hear a pianist linger than rush through some of the more poetic passages. 

[San Antone]

Ben Schoeman (2011)
Twopianists 2039091
Ben Schoeman is regarded as one of South Africa's foremost pianists. He has won major prizes, including the first grand prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition, Pretoria (2008), first prize and gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, London (2009), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music (2011) and the Contemporary Music Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, USA (2013).

Mr. Schoeman's solo album, featuring works of Franz Liszt, was released in 2011 under the TwoPianists label (sponsored by Standard Bank). His DVD recording of concertos by Mozart and Tchaikovsky with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa and conductor Arjan Tien was released by Salon music and UNISA. He received the Laureate Award from the University of Pretoria (2008) and he was also awarded the KykNet Fiesta and Kanna Awards in recognition of his performances of Liszt's music during the bicentenary of the composer (2011). (Steinway Artists site)

Schoeman's playing of the Liszt sonata is not at all shabby.  This is a beautifully recorded and performed recording, it is unfortunate to have garnered very little attention from the critical press.

[San Antone]

Dezsö Ránki (1975)
QUINTANA QUI 903024
Virtually identical in conception with Ranki's 1975 recording (Denon C37-7547), the sonata exhibits the same fluency, tonal refinement, and brisk pacing, though conviction has deepened and poetry flowered, drawing the artist's many estimable virtues together in a beautiful perfection—or confection—to make one of the most glowingly lapidary accounts on disc. (Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare)

I cannot find Ránki's recording of the Liszt sonata reviewed above (which appears to have a confused provenance: Harmonia Mundi HMA 1903024 (1994) / Quintana QUI 903024 (1991)) - but there is an LP transfer of his Denon recording on YouTube.  This is an elegant and powerful performance, and it is a crime for none of these recordings to be more easily available.

[San Antone]

Lazar Berman (1955)
Piano Classics Liszt 200 bicentenary edition - PCLD0022
His performance of the Sonata, Dante Sonata and especially the selection from the Transcendental Etudes shows not only his phenomenal technique but also his great sensitivity, beauty of tone (even in the biggest fortes) and innate poetry. (Piano Classics)

Berman was inconsistent but when he was "on" there was hardly a better Liszt interpreter.  This 1955 recording finds Berman "on".  It is one of the great performances.  Berman recorded the work several more times later in his career but never better.  It is not note-perfect, far from it – but it is spirit-perfect, so to speak.  Berman conveys the work in a manner which projects the kind of heroic Romanticism I want to hear come through the music.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

So what about that other Liszt sonata: the so-called Dante Sonata? It's a work not to be taken lightly...well, that should be a given. But what about its place alongside the daunting B minor sonata?

It would have never occurred to me to compare the two works. Why try? What's the point anyway? The two works are their own destinations on the musical map and need no special pleading.

But when a performance of the Dante comes along that actually challenges the hegemony of the B minor, well...it's new territory for me, anyway!

But that's just what Mr. Nemoto gives us, here. Stop the press........

Yeah, stop the press...for me, anyway. This is just the sort of performance I crave. One that tears down the walls of convention and erects something completely new in its place. A performance that speaks in a completely new language yet never gets lost in its own cleverness. It puts its best honest foot forward and tasks the listener to come to terms with it, or get out of the way. If it works, the end result should be both inimitable and indelible.

And man, indelible is the word (well, inimitable, too).

Liszt's sweaty, tripped-out, kaleidoscopic workshop of a piece is given totally new garb and burrows right into the psyche. It simply glows. And glows...on and on....

Time to repeat!

Repeat indeed but just as Nemoto dazzles in the Dante he also sings with an appropriately poetic voice in the rest of the music. The entire disc is a winner. It's Italian living in all its glory.   

Oh, and the issue of sound came up earlier. It's definitely worth mentioning here since it plays an active role in relaying Nemoto's intentions. Dynamics are best described as wide, wider, and WIDEST. Wider dynamics I've never heard before on a piano recording (even from Connoisseur Society). It actually took some getting used to as the left hand/bass, when it gets low, gets lower than I'd have thought possible - on records or in person. But it didn't take long before everything made perfect sonic sense and the great sound went hand-in-hand with Nemoto's striking conception. Would like to hear more from this company...and soon will...as all three books of Années are available with different pianists.




[asin]B00GXE8EVO[/asin]

[San Antone]

So what about that other Liszt sonata: the so-called Dante Sonata? It's a work not to be taken lightly...well, that should be a given. But what about its place alongside the daunting B minor sonata?

It would have never occurred to me to compare the two works. Why try? What's the point anyway? The two works are their own destinations on the musical map and need no special pleading.

But when a performance of the Dante comes along that actually challenges the hegemony of the B minor, well...it's new territory for me, anyway!

But that's just what Mr. Nemoto gives us, here. Stop the press........

Yeah, stop the press...for me, anyway. This is just the sort of performance I crave. One that tears down the walls of convention and erects something completely new in its place. A performance that speaks in a completely new language yet never gets lost in its own cleverness. It puts its best honest foot forward and tasks the listener to come to terms with it, or get out of the way. If it works, the end result should be indelible.

And man, indelible is the word.

Liszt's sweaty, tripped-out, kaleidoscopic workshop of a piece is given totally new garb and burrows right into the psyche. It simply glows. And glows...on and on....

Time to repeat!

Repeat indeed but just as Nemoto dazzles in the Dante he also sings with an appropriately poetic voice in the rest of the music. The entire disc is a winner. It's the Italian countryside in all its pastoral glory.   

Oh, and the issue of sound came up earlier. It's definitely worth mentioning here since it plays an active part in relaying Nemoto's intentions. The dynamics are WIDE, WIDE, WIDE. Wider dynamics I've never heard before in a piano recording. It actually took some getting used to as the left hand/bass, when it gets low, gets lower than I'd have thought possible - on records or in person. But it didn't take long before everything made perfect sonic sense and the great sound went hand-in-hand with Nemoto's striking conception. Would like to hear more from this company...and soon will...as all three books of Années are available with different pianists.




[asin]B00GXE8EVO[/asin]

Sounds very interesting.  I am about finished with my survey of the B Minor and haven't even listened to the Dante Sonata, but have read a little about the work.  Thanks for the review, I will try to hear this recording before I take a hiatus from Liszt.  I need a break before embarking on the next stage of my discography.

What I've found interesting is that a pianist who excels in one work(s) by Liszt might fail miserably with others.  For example, Mūza Rubackytė does a great job, some feel the best modern recording, with the Annees, but I've read nothing but bad things about her recording of the B Minor Sonata, which is impossible to find anyway.

[San Antone]

I am winding up my survey of as many of the recordings of the B Minor Sonata as I could find.  Over the course of the last month or so I have listened to 138 recordings - with about a dozen more to go.  But I doubt that any of these that remain will effect the Top Ten List.

Krystian Zimerman
Martha Argerich
Sviatislav Richter
Cécile Ousset
Nikolai Demidenko
Marc-André Hamelin
Vladimir Horowitz
Jorge Bolet
Louis Lortie
Maurizio Pollini

I will publish reviews of these ten on my blog as well as offer the entire 54-page discography as a downloadable PDF file by Sunday or early next week.  Separately I will write a "Performance Synopsis" which will include examples from the score and possibly some audio clips to demonstrate certain aspects of the kind of performance I think works best. 

[Pat B]

I cannot find Ránki's recording of the Liszt sonata reviewed above (which appears to have a confused provenance: Harmonia Mundi HMA 1903024 (1994) / Quintana QUI 903024 (1991)) - but there is an LP transfer of his Denon recording on YouTube.  This is an elegant and powerful performance, and it is a crime for none of these recordings to be more easily available.

Quintana was a short-lived Hungarian branch of Harmonia Mundi. That should explain the two releases of Ránki's second recording.

I see two "videos" on youtube (here and here. These both seem to be the later HM recording.

Amazon marketplace has 3 reasonably-priced copies of the Denon CD (link). Unfortunately the HM one, even in reissued form, is priced more as a collector's item. A reissue is probably too much to hope for, but maybe they'll get it onto the streaming services soon.

[Pat B]

I am winding up my survey of as many of the recordings of the B Minor Sonata as I could find.  Over the course of the last month or so I have listened to 138 recordings - with about a dozen more to go...

I will publish reviews of these ten on my blog as well as offer the entire 54-page discography as a downloadable PDF file by Sunday or early next week.  Separately I will write a "Performance Synopsis" which will include examples from the score and possibly some audio clips to demonstrate certain aspects of the kind of performance I think works best.

100+ in a month, with something interesting to say about many of them -- I'm impressed. And I'm looking forward to those blog posts.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

What I've found interesting is that a pianist who excels in one work(s) by Liszt might fail miserably with others.  For example, Mūza Rubackytė does a great job, some feel the best modern recording, with the Annees, but I've read nothing but bad things about her recording of the B Minor Sonata, which is impossible to find anyway.

Yeah, Rubackyte's Années isn't easy to find, ether! Well, except for the sets that pop up on the Amazons for sky-high prices.

In the interim, I'm really happy with my cobbled Années: Fiorentino in the first book, Nemoto in the second, and Kocsis in the third.

Kocsis is the real sleeper, here. He was the "Wiz Kid" years ago who grew into a thoughtful - if individual - interpreter but I don't think his third book of Années ever got the attention it deserved. This may be partly due to the fact it's, well, it's the third book, the one book of Années that (from all I've read) doesn't enjoy the mainstream popularity of the other two books.

The third book seems to suffer from something of an image problem: it's on the experimental side, giving much attention to making quality music out of the sparsest of phrases and the bleakest of textures. But that's the greatness of the writing. Just give it an interpreter the caliber of Kocsis and it'll blossom in full.   




[asin]B00000HY8L[/asin]

[San Antone]

Yeah, Rubackyte's Années isn't easy to find, ether! Well, except for the sets that pop up on the Amazons for sky-high prices.

In the interim, I'm really happy with my cobbled Années: Fiorentino in the first book, Nemoto in the second, and Kocsis in the third.

Kocsis is the real sleeper, here. He was the "Wiz Kid" years ago who grew into a thoughtful - if individual - interpreter but I don't think his third book of Années ever got the attention it deserved. This may be partly due to the fact it's, well, it's the third book, the one book of Années that (from all I've read) doesn't enjoy the mainstream popularity of the other two books.

The third book seems to suffer from something of an image problem: it's on the experimental side, giving much attention to making quality music out of the sparsest of phrases and the bleakest of textures. But that's the greatness of the writing. Just give it an interpreter the caliber of Kocsis and it'll blossom in full.   




[asin]B00000HY8L[/asin]

I went for the MP3 of Rubackyte's Années and am happy I did.  I also have that three CD set with Brendel for the first two years and Kocsis for the third.  I really enjoy Kocsis Liszt playing, his Sonata was also very good. 

There are now a number of very good complete sets of the Annees.  Bertrand Chamayou is another wonderful set, in great sound; as is Nicholas Angelich.  I like the 2nd and 3rd years more than the 1st, which may be a result of over exposure.  Stephen Hough has done an excellent 1st year and I wonder if he will continue.  Russell Sherman did the first two years, but no 3rd as far as I can tell, it received positive reviews.  Louis Lortie's is also very good.   Aldo Ciccolini did a wonderful job with the complete Annees.

I have the Fiorentino but not Nemoto - will try to find it as a streaming file.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I went for the MP3 of Rubackyte's Années and am happy I did.  I also have that three CD set with Brendel for the first two years and Kocsis for the third.  I really enjoy Kocsis Liszt playing, his Sonata was also very good. 

There are now a number of very good complete sets of the Annees.  Bertrand Chamayou is another wonderful set, in great sound; as is Nicholas Angelich.  I like the 2nd and 3rd years more than the 1st, which may be a result of over exposure.  Stephen Hough has done an excellent 1st year and I wonder if he will continue.  Russell Sherman did the first two years, but no 3rd as far as I can tell, it received positive reviews.  Louis Lortie's is also very good.   Aldo Ciccolini did a wonderful job with the complete Annees.

I have the Fiorentino but not Nemoto - will try to find it as a streaming file.

Wait...out of all that you haven't yet heard the Dante sonata?:

...and haven't even listened to the Dante Sonata, but have read a little about the work.

Was it omitted from each of these sets?