Liszt "cziffra"

Back in the fifties my music master took me to the Royal Festival Hall to hear Georges Cziffra. This momentous occasion was as much a political event as a musical one. Having recently breached the 'iron curtain' in a dramatic escape to the West from his native Hungary (where he had recently been imprisoned) in the aftermath of the 1956 revolution, the press had hyped him up into a newly discovered world class virtuoso cum freedom fighter. He fell into the role with much aplomb.

This 10 CD set offers 11 live recitals given by 10 famous pianists in Switzerland from 1953 to 1993. Each pianist is credited by a single CD. Only Backhaus CD contains fragments from two different programs (1953 and 1960), all the other pianists are represented by a single program.

Not all of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies are flat-out showpieces like the best-known ones, so this disc makes for a better listening program than you might expect. And Jénö Jandó, who must be the hardest-working pianist in the recording business, has a real flair for this music. He plays with the combination of free rhythms and virtuosity that the music demands, and he even indulges in a bit of improvisation when the spirit moves him. This was probably something Liszt did himself, and other great Liszt interpreters such as Rachmaninov and Cziffra have done the same thing. Jandó doesn't quite have Cziffra's overwhelming virtuosity, but he plays musically and the result is a highly entertaining disc.

If the name of György Cziffra remains unswervingly associated with Liszt, Frédéric Chopin’s music was the pianist’s true love from his very childhood. Cziffra’s mastery and sensitivity works wonders, either in the waltzes, the impromptus, the études or the first piano concerto conducted by his son, all gathered in this superb collection.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt's birth, virtuoso pianist Lang Lang has selected some of the composer's most characteristic pieces for his 2011 Sony release, Liszt: My Piano Hero…

Liszt poured a wealth of ingenuity and an astonishing degree of diversity into works for piano. EMI Classics' exclusive 10-CD set of Liszt's greatest piano works features keyboard virtuosi from generations past and present including Leif Ove Andsnes, Aldo Ciccolini, Georges Cziffra and Lionel Rogg.