Leif Ove Andsnes - Liszt: Piano Recital (2001)

Tracklist

01. Années de pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, Italie, S. 161: Après une lecture du Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata)
02. 4 Valses oubliées, S. 215: No. 4
03. Mephisto Waltz No. 4, S. 696: (Allegro vivace)
04. Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth, S. 534 No. 3
05. Ballade No. 2 in B Minor, S. 171
06. Mephisto Waltz No. 2, S. 515
07. Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173: IX. Andante lagrimoso
08. Mephisto Waltz No. 1, S. 514

An index to the excellence of Leif Ove Andsnes's Liszt recital is that he makes familiar works exciting and fresh-sounding and obscure ones persuasive and accessible. Andsnes turns the "Mephisto" Waltz No. 1 from a tired circus stunt into a tone poem daring in its effrontery and voluptuous in its lyricism. He plays the "Dante" Sonata without the usual penny-awful bludgeoning and sentimental blustering and lifts its treatment of love, chaos, and redemption to an exalted level. The infrequently performed "Andante lagrimoso" (No. 9 of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses) is haunting in its unceasing alterations between pain and serenity. And in late works--such as the Second and Fourth "Mephisto" Waltzes and the "Valse oubliée" No. 4--the pianist shows us how far Liszt had traveled from romanticism toward both expressionism and impressionism, making us understand how these works lit the paths of composers as diverse as Debussy, Schoenberg, and Bartók. If you buy only one recording of Liszt's piano music this year, make it this.

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