Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Liszt Mephisto Waltz

As I've said here often, I'm pretty new to classical music but this Liszt Mephisto Waltz is the most emotion evoking, dynamic piece I've experienced.

See my Khatia Buniatishvili post w/link.

Alexei Sultanov also does great with this.

Horowitz too.

Others?

Bech

Yes! I will upload it when I get the chance tonight. It's by a woman named Susan Chan.

Now I find there's Mephisto Waltz 1, 2, 3 and 4. Have now listened to them all as played by Lesli Howard. Excellent sound. Although I'm presently too ignorant to know, I expect excellent interpretation. Howard is president of England's Liszt Society--as well as president of their Alkan Society. His biography is impressive.

It appears he may be the most respected Liszt scholar/pianist in the world.

Bech

2, 3, and 4 are very interesting works (particularly 2), but I still think 1 the best of the lot, it seems the most consistently inspired.

As for Horowitz, well maybe others here love it more than I do. Of course the sheer technical address is amazing -how could it not be?- but the piece is so utterly rewritten for little gain, and tends to have a rather bottom-heavy effect which quickly becomes tiresome on the ear.

I once heard an old Decca LP of Ashkenazy playing the 1st Mephisto (along with a generous selection of the Transcendental Etudes), and it was some of the finest Liszt playing I have ever encountered. Askenazy was reportedly not very fond of Liszt, and he never recorded anything else.

A quick check on Amazon didn't turn up anything except very expensive out-of-print recordings.


A case could be made for that, though I wouldn't discount Alan Walker and his three volume biography of Liszt. Highly recommended reading.

Howard does a fine job with most of the Liszt works. He often won't be your favorite, but in the absence of another interpretation always offers a solid performance. I like Rubinstein (dry for many tastes), and John Ogdon (a more fiery version) on the 1st Mephisto waltz.
Alan Walker has a (3?) volume biography of Liszt and Robert Greenberg has a more condensed biography in a series of lectures available from "The Teaching Company"
Back to Howard, he has done Liszt fans a huge service in hunting down the obscure giving audio representation of all his piano works.

Susan Chan:

http://www.box.net/shared/ipno4o2pqn

Sorry, no YouTube yet... I now always upload scores with audio-only piano recordings, and I'm busy doing other ones first.

Thanks for uploading this. We can never have too many recordings of this one!

You think?

Really? Academically perhaps. However, I don't think he could be a whole lot further from the historical Liszt tradition. He is capable of some good things, but it's a very modern way of playing Liszt. Rhythmically especially, I often wonder is there's a metronome running. Compared to the way Liszt's students played, I just can't imagine Liszt having been blown away by such overwhelming middle-of-the-road competence.

While you have to respect the guy, I do find it rather saddening that this is basically the public face of contemporary Liszt playing. Liszt's finest music deserves a whole lot more.

My best memories go back to an absolutely stunning performance by Deszö Ranki.