Eine Faust-Symphonie in drei Charakterbildern, S. 108 (1854 Version) [Arr. H. Albrecht for Organ]

Album review

Based on the initial 1854 version – and so without the closing Chorus Mysticus which would be added a few years later – organist Hansjörg Albrecht made his own transcription for organ of Liszt's Faust Symphony, one of the composer's great symphonic monuments. Knowing, on the one hand, how much Liszt loved the organ, and on the other how the practice of transcription was in no sense a travesty (he himself wrote a version for two pianos in 1857), there's really no reason why one oughtn't give it a go. Of course, it is useful to have to hand a symphonic organ, and that is exactly what Albrecht had in the form of the Klais organ of the Munich Philharmonic: the famous Gasteig With its four keyboards, pedalboard and 74 stops, it offers countless different musical colours, which is not only easily enough to reproduce Liszt's orchestra, but also to create new iridescences, new lines of attack, new gradations, such that one really has the feel of encountering a new work, or at least a considerably enriched version of the Faust Symphony. © SM/Qobuz