Published Reviews
By Steven J Haller
American Record Guide
01-Jul-2011
LISZT, F.: Orchestral Pieces - Hungarian Rhapsodies / Dante Symphony / Symphonic Poems (Korodi, Haenchen, Ferencsik, Nemeth) C7090
LISZT, F.: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Fantasies (Jando, Budapest Symphony, A. Ligeti) C7095
Capriccio has taken the 5-CD Liszt set they brought out a few years ago (July/Aug 2005), added more music, and split everything into two sets. But they haven’t added that much more music; and since most stores don’t take trade-ins, anyone who bought the earlier set may well ask what’s new here. The short answer: not much, but I found a couple pieces worth keeping.
Three out of the five discs in the original set were orchestral, and the standout remains Hartmut Haenchen’s intense and richly conceived Dante Symphony, which comes very close to matching Barenboim for sheer massive force in the opening ‘Inferno’—not least the almost brutal low brass—and yet the elegiac ‘Purgatorio’ and ethereal ‘Magnificat’ are absolutely sublime, with the women’s chorus at the close as if from on high. Certainly I’d set Haenchen’s superb performance well above either of the new recordings discussed above.
But the real treat is the first recording ever that I know of, of Liszt’s own transcription of A la Chapelle Sixtine—originally written for organ—that combines two sources, a paraphrase of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere (itself oddly suggestive of the slow movement from the Beethoven Seventh) and the more familiar Ave Verum Corpus of Mozart, later used by Tchaikovsky in Mozartiana. Sometimes darkly chromatic, sometimes almost approaching chamber music, this is a beautiful piece you’ll want to have in your collection. But Capriccio has also issued these two pieces on a single disc, 10736.
This is at least the third time around for the Hungarian Rhapsodies from Andras Korodi and the Budapest Symphony—I first reviewed them in March/April 1990. My opinion hasn’t really changed that much. Korodi gets some expressive playing out of his men, but nothing approaching the electricity of Dorati with the London Symphony (Mercury; Sept/Oct 1991) or Ivan Fischer’s highly imaginative Philips survey (Mar/Apr 1999). Korodi’s dreary treatment of 2 is a particular disappointment, while the all-important cymbalom in 3 is all but buried. You can do better.
I felt you could do better than Janos Ferencsik’s Les Preludes too, but I like it a lot more than the sodden Ahronovitch substituted here. Ferencsik wasn’t big on excitement either, but he worked it up more than Ahronovitch and he had a better ear for color too. But Ferencsik’s Tasso and Hungaria are well worth having. Tasso never descends into bathos like some conductors in its opening pages thamore....
|
