Liszt The Complete Piano Music

The virtuoso pianist and exclusive Chandos artist Louis Lortie here performs all three books, or ‘Years’, of Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), a work rarely recorded in its entirety. Lortie has made more than thirty recordings for Chandos, covering a repertoire from Mozart to Stravinsky. His recording of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Variations won an Edison Award; his disc of works by Schumann and Brahms was judged one of the best CDs of the year by BBC Music, and his interpretations of Liszt’s complete works for piano and orchestra and of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas were both selected as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone.

Franz Liszt was involved in years of travel as a virtuoso pianist, enjoying the wildest adulation of audiences in a frenzied period that became known as Lisztomania. The appeal of his programmes included appropriate national tributes, and Liszt had recourse to varied musical sources as stimulus for these kinds of composition. From the lovely Canzone napolitana that uses a melody of unknown origin and the Hungarian Folk Songs that formed part of Liszts triumphant return to his native land, to a spectacular paraphrase of God Save the Queen that might have amused Queen Victoria, these rousing musical gifts are all evidence of a composer/ pianist at the height of his inventiveness.

Louis Lortie plays Liszt - The Complete Annees De Pelerinage
24B/96kHz Stereo FLAC: 2,41 GB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Chandos # [CHAN10662(2)] | Country/Year: Europe 2011
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…This Années de pèlerinage is unquestionably one of the finest releases thus far during the Liszt bicentennial. Time will tell, but it also may be the finest recording of the work to date. Not to be missed.