To commemorate Liszt's 200th birthday year, this release gathers together all of Vladimir Horowitz's Liszt recordings controlled by the Sony/BMG group and previously issued by RCA, CBS, and Sony in a four-disc collection. Each disc covers a specific period of Horowitz's recording career, such as "The Last Decade", "Horowitz at Carnegie Hall–Early Live Recordings", and "Early Studio Recordings".
Although Claudio Arrau had impressive credentials as a Liszt player - his only teacher was Martin Krause, who was a student of Liszt - and he performed many of the composer's works early in his career, he neither exploited this association, nor became known as a Liszt specialist. Perhaps this was because Krause warned him not to become a specialist in the music of any one composer, urging him instead to embrace all music. Consequently, the younger Arrau's repertoire was very large; however, as he grew older he concentrated on fewer composers, moving as it were from the universal to the particular applying almost prophetic insight into certain scores, especially those of Beethoven and Liszt.
Leslie Howard’s recordings of Liszt’s complete piano music, on 99 CDs, is one of the monumental achievements in the history of recorded music. Remarkable as much for its musicological research and scholarly rigour as for Howard’s Herculean piano playing, this survey remains invaluable to serious lovers of Liszt.
Musically, Franz Liszt (1811–1886) is one of the most written about but least understood composers of the 19th century. As for his life—Felix Mendelssohn observed that Liszt's character was "a continual alternation between scandal and apotheosis." "Scandal and apotheosis"? What could that possibly mean? Join music professor Robert Greenberg for these lectures, and go on a fascinating journey in search of the truth about both. "Franz Liszt, Both Sides Now," you might call it.
Warner Classics has issued this splendid three disc boxed set of eight Franz Liszt scores. It fetaures Daniel Barenboim as both piano soloist and conductor… This fine selection could not have a finer advocate than Daniel Barenboim; a true giant in the classical music world today. A brilliant performer at the piano and a conductor of great renown this man lives for music. - Michael Cookson; MusicWeb-International
This second volume of Hyperion’s newest Lieder series features the great dramatic and musical gifts of mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager. Internationally renowned on the opera stage, the concert hall and the recording studio, Kirchschlager is an ideal performer of these most varied, complex and emotionally charged songs. She is accompanied by the multi-Gramophone Award-winning Julius Drake, who curates the series.
Whilst Liszt’s piano music derived from music for plays is a much smaller body of work than his catalogue of operatic pieces, the approach in his methods of composition, elaboration and transcription remains broadly the same. As far as present Liszt scholarship permits one ever to be categorical, this recording contains all of Liszt’s works in this genre.
A key release for the Liszt anniversary year: Alfred Brendel: Liszt - an addition to the series of Artist's Choice albums in which Alfred Brendel has selected his preferred recordings from his Liszt discography. Three generously-filled CDs include such masterpieces as the Sonata in B minor and a selection of late pieces as well as the complete "Italie" from the Années de pèlerinage.