Liszt: Pièces tardives

Album review

Many of Franz Liszt's late works for solo piano, along with his pieces for cello and piano, may be described as premonitions of the Music of the Future -- achieved not through clairvoyance but through a growing awareness of the implications of his own theoretical advances. Unstable harmonies, unresolved dissonances, and chromatic ambiguity interested Liszt as far back as the 1830s, but only became fully realized in his compositions of the 1880s. Of these, La lugubre gondola and Am Grabe Richard Wagners are perhaps the most famous examples, often cited for their uneasy tonality and gloomy coloration. Equally fascinating are the proto-Impressionist miniature Trübe Wolken (Nuages gris), the grim Czardas obstinée, the austere Abschied, and the alarming Unstern! Sinistre, Disastro -- works that at times anticipate Debussy, Schoenberg, or Scriabin, but still pull back from the edge of the atonal abyss. On this recording, Jos van Immerseel plays two straight-strung Erard pianos, dating from 1886 and 1897, and Sergei Istomin elicits a plaintive Romantic tone from his late eighteenth century cello. Their performances diligently follow the period's practices and are quite subdued, with little of the flashiness or bombast one might expect of the nineteenth century's showiest pianist. ZigZag's sound quality is exceptional.

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