Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Franz Liszt appreciation thread.

Not the way you're used to hearing it.

^I loved those Damon, thanks! I really need to get the complete Leslie Howard Liszt...


I've been listening to his De profundis for piano and orchestra lately. It his Liszt's longest work for piano and orchestra at around 34 minutes. It was written in 1834, and left unfinished. The piano part was pretty much finished, but the orchestration was still in draft form. It was discovered in 1992 and some minor finishing touches were made to make complete performance possible. Being written in 1834, when Liszt was firmly in his virtuoso years and had not yet developed into anything close to the composer we know today, it is a flawed work. However I have really taken a liking to it. Great as they are, I don't think either of Liszt's concerti are among his best stuff, although I do love the second. This work here is probably my second favourite piano and orchestra by him behind the gorgeous second piano concerto.

It is really a stunningly original for a work written at that time and at that age. Despite its flaws it is a remarkable and fascinating work with some great moments. A lot of the material would later be distilled and made into the remarkable solo piano work Pensée des morts.

I highly recommend the set. Many may say that Howard doesn't give the most exciting performances but I think most are pretty solid. Being a (nearly) complete set, we get to compare early efforts with revisions made over the years. Liszt didn't hide his warts like others.

Yes. I have heard many of his recordings and they are usually pretty good although some pieces I think he plays very poorly. I think the general consensus is that it is great as a reference and for being able to hear everything he wrote rather than absolute first class playing. But what a monumental achievement...

Now if only I had 300+ dollars to spare...

You don't have to buy them all at once.

Well yeah. But buying the big box set is a HUGE bargain. No point buying individual ones if i'm gonna get the big one soon enough.

Behold the awesome power of his music :

Agree, and that is why I'm getting the new release of Rubinstein's box set.

Indeed. And for those less comfortable with organ music, here is Busoni's take on Liszt's Ad nos. At first I thought it too slow, but I have come to agree. This, along with the Norma Fantasy, might possibly be the only work to challenge the B minor sonata. (The Met broadcast today was Norma -vintage performance with Sutherland- and it gave me a renewed appreciation of Liszt's 'reminiscence' of the opera.)

I have been listening to that piece, and that performance, repeatedly lately. I put it as Liszt's second greatest solo piano work behind the Sonata (if you count it as his work, being a transcription by Busoni). GREAT work...One of the most powerful pieces in the solo piano repertoire. Dorfman has a CD out with this work and a bunch of others on his site that I am interested in getting after hearing his amazing performance of the Ad Nos. I find it remarkable that piano skills is not and has not in fact been his primary ambition, but rather his core ambition seems to be visual art. Some people just got it!

I thought you would enjoy that.

I personally appreciate the ability to listen to Schubert songs expertly transcribed with the singing removed.

I'm afraid I prefer having the singer there, but of course, the transcriptions are expertly done.

Nobody plays this study like askkenazy does

I have met Leslie! He is such a wonderful man, and he knows liszt's life so well its really scary!

Terrific! Thankyou.

Liszt's transcriptions of his own songs are very good too. Obviously there's the three Liebesträume, and the three Petrarch Sonnets, but there are also two lovely books of his own song transcriptions.

Here are a couple of my favourites.







Thankyou! I hadn't heard Ashkenazy in that Etude before. Terrific.

Wow. I just heard 'Tristia' by Liszt for the first time. It was written in 1880 and is based on Valee d'Obermann. Unlike the second version for trio (Tristia is the third) the piece is very different from the original. It is very much like his other late pieces in that it is very dark...and hauntingly beautiful.

Yesterday I was randomly looking at solo piano recitals on youtube and I found this one by Kissin. I actually went to his playing of the same program in September, and watching it again brought back good memories. It is an all Liszt recital (in Verbia, July 23 2011) including, in order:

Ricordanza, Etudes D'exécution Transcendante No.9.
Piano Sonata in B minor.
Funérailles (Harmonies poétiques et religieuses No. 7)
Les années de pèlerinage 1ère Année (La Suisse) No.6 - Vallée d'Obermann.
Les années de pèlerinage 2ème Année (L'Italie supplément) Venezia e Napoli.

Encores:

Liebesträume No. 3 in A-flat.
Soirées de Vienne, valse caprice for piano No. 6 (after Schubert D. 969 & 779).
Widmung (Liebeslied), transcription for piano (after Schumann)



Enjoy!

I actually like Liszt's Ave Verum Corpus better than Mozart's.




Edit: So I just realised I have the last four posts in this thread. Hope ya'll don't mind