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Description
Franz Liszt was born on October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary, and became the most celebrated pianist of the nineteenth century — a performer whose technical command was so far beyond his contemporaries that he effectively redefined what the instrument was capable of. As a composer he channeled that virtuosity into a body of piano works of extraordinary ambition and range, expanding the expressive and technical horizons of piano writing in ways that influenced every major composer who followed him. His music draws on an unusually wide array of sources — Hungarian folk idioms, operatic drama, lyrical song, and pure pianistic spectacle — and the works gathered in this collection represent some of the most vivid and varied examples of his art.
The collection opens with the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C-Sharp Minor, one of the most turbulent and dramatically charged entries in that celebrated series, before moving to the Paraphrase de concert sur Rigoletto, in which Liszt transforms Verdi's operatic quartet into a breathtaking showpiece that captures the full drama and character of the original within a single piano part. The Grand Galop Chromatique is among the most purely exhilarating pieces Liszt ever wrote, a headlong chromatic rush that places enormous demands on the performer, while the Valse-Impromptu offers a contrasting elegance and lightness, its flowing dance rhythms and ornamental delicacy providing a moment of repose amid the collection's broader intensity.
The three Études de Concert, S. 144, composed around 1848, represent Liszt at his most refined and poetic. Rather than showcasing technical difficulty for its own sake, each étude subordinates its considerable pianistic demands to a distinct expressive character. Il lamento unfolds as a long, sorrowful melodic line of great tenderness, La leggierezza is a study in featherlight delicacy and gossamer touch, and Un sospiro — perhaps the most beloved of the three — builds its sighing, arching melody over a flowing cascade of arpeggios that pass seamlessly between the hands. Together these seven works offer a portrait of Liszt in full command of his art, equally at home in the dramatic and the intimate, the thunderous and the sublime.
Track List:
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Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C-Sharp Minor, S. 244 - 10:26
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Paraphrase de concert sur Rigoletto, S. 434 - 7:02
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Grand Galop Chromatique, S. 219 - 4:31
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Valse-Impromptu, S. 213 - 6:03
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3 Études de Concert, S.144 in A-Flat Major "Il lamento" - 10:18
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3 Études de Concert, S.144 in F Minor "La leggierezza" - 4:58
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3 Études de Concert, S.144 in D-Flat Major "Un sospiro" - 5:28
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- Total Runtime - 48:46
