Gianandrea Noseda, Bbc Philharmonic Franz Liszt: Symphonic Poems, Vol.2

This is the fourth volume of the BBC Phiharmonic’s five-disc cycle of Liszt’s Symphonic Poems, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. This monumental survey continues to go from strength to strength through Noseda’s passionate conducting and innate Italian romanticism and has made possible a reappraisal of these unjustly neglected works. The Telegraph wrote, “…it is hard to imagine them ever sounding better than here. This is music-making full of rich colouring, refined shaping of melodic line and emotional power.”

No one could ever accuse Liszt of a lack or largesse. And listening to Vol 3 in Chandos’s recordings of the symphonic poems you are made more aware that ever of his role as an over-reacher, a towering figure who sought to loosen all formal constraints and allow the river of Romanticism to rush by in full spate… it says much for the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda that they once more temper drama with discretion. They achieve a special sense of exultance rather than bombast in Festklänge… and they are no less successful in the vast spans of the Héroïde funèbre… Fluent and eloquent as ever, Noseda and his orchestra have once more been superbly recorded.

Volume 1 of Liszt's complete symphonic poems augurs well for the releases. Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic remind you at every turn that the days of a lofty critical dismissal of this uneven but pioneering and romantically audacious music are surely over. Coldly objective complaints about Liszt's lack of craftsmanship or melodic distinction have been echoed in other more stylishly phrased complaints: for Clara Schumann there was 'too much of the tinsel and the drum' while Edward Sackville-West could see little beyond 'the expensive glare and theatricality'.