Liszt Berman

Berman’s first teacher was his mother, herself a pupil of Isabella Vengerova, but at an early age he had lessons from Savshinsky of the Leningrad Conservatory. Berman first played in public at the age of four, and at the age of seven he took part in a concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, subsequently being asked to record Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor K. 397, and a composition of his own…

The late Lazar Berman (1930-2005) recorded two complete cycles of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes for Melodiya. His 1959 version appeared in the long-deleted BMG/Melodiya Russian Piano School CD reissue series. The 1963 remake presented here was briefly available via Japanese Victor and as part of a three-disc set on the independent Venezia label, while Columbia Masterworks brought it out on LP in the mid-’70s to tie in with the pianist’s first American tour.

Hailed by some as the third primary figure among great Russian pianists of the twentieth century's second half, Lazar Berman has occasionally lived up to that reputation, but frequently has not. Emil Gilels, the first genius-level Soviet pianist to become well-known in the West, insisted that there was one artist, yet unheard in the West, who was the greater artist. Later, after Sviatoslav Richter's arrival in Europe and America, most felt Gilels had been correct. Still later, however, Gilels maintained that yet another pianist, Lazar Berman, was the finest of the three. After the initial stir created by Berman's 1976 American tour and other appearances in the West, critical opinion held that, while he was an extraordinary if uneven artist, he was not superior to the protean Richter or to the clear-minded Gilels. Still, his art was of an order by no means common.

The Transcendental Études (French: Études d'exécution transcendante), S.139, are a set of twelve compositions for piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of an 1837 set (which had not borne the title "d'exécution transcendante"), which in turn were – for the most part – an elaboration of a set of studies written in 1826.

Liszt's three volumes of Annees de pelerinage are rarely recorded complete, largely because many pianists remain baffled by the dark-hued prophecy and romanticism of the third and final book. So it is particularly gratifying to welcome Lazar Berman's superb 1977 DG recordings back into the catalogue, particularly when so finely remastered on CD. Berman is hardly celebrated as the most subtle or refined of pianists, but at his greatest he combines grandeur and sensibility to a rare degree and his response to Book Three, in particular, is of the highest musical quality and poetic insight.

Firma Melodiya presents recordings by one of the best known pianists of the 20th century Lazar Berman.
A graduate of the Central Music School and Moscow Conservatory where he studied under professor Alexander Goldenweiser, Lazar Berman, while still a student, became a prize-winner of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin, and the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels and Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He who struck the audience with his phenomenal virtuosity and unsurpassed technique became the best interpreter of Liszt’s music in this country (in particular, he was the first Soviet pianist who recorded all twelve of Liszt’s Transcendental Études).