Liszt

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.

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".

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.

Franz Liszt - Liszt at the Theatre - Leslie Howard (1992) {Hyperion CDA66575}
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© 1992 Hyperion Records | CDA66575
Classical / Solo Piano

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.

Liszt, according to the great British pianist John Ogdon, was responsible for ‘breaking the Germanic stranglehold on nineteenth-century composers, and scattering the seeds of modern music almost literally to the four winds. His music shows an avant-garde attitude to the problems of composing which was without parallel in the nineteenth century.’