Customer Reviews

Complete Tone Poems 2

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Franz Liszt invented the symphonic tone poem genre and this splendid two CD compilation is the second half in a series of recordings of Liszt's scores from Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. These are warm, technically brilliant, but also passionate, performances replete with great performances from the strings, winds and horns when the London Philharmonic was London's best symphony orchestra. Haitink leads the LPO in excellent interpretations, with my favorites being the "Battle of the Huns" and Mephisto Waltz Number One. Philips' sound quality is superb due to state-of-the-art 24 bit digital image remastering. Here's hoping that the first volume in this series will be available to classical music fans soon.

OK Mr. Hurwitz, if only because Liszt created the art-form of symphonic poems as they went on to existance we should just "respect" the tone poems, but Hunnenschlact--How could you not LOVE this piece?? This was most certainly the blueprint for Saint-Saens' absolutely killer Symphony #3 (which was written as a tribute to Liszt, actually) with its pairing of organ and symphony orchestra. With that and the other 12 poems, there's plenty of love and respect to go around!

All recordings of Liszt's symphonic poems should be compared to the fabulous set by Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhash Orchestra. They are near perfection in their spontaneity and authenticity. These are good recordings - even great - although it would be hard not to perform such notables as Hungaria, the Mephisto Waltz and Hunnenschlacht.

As I stated in my review of the first set, these are difficult to understand completely because of the general literary and cultural illiteracy that plagues America, particularly the youth. All the poems have a literary inspiration - Hamlet, Orpheus, Faust, the "Hero" of German Literature. Listening to these without knowing the story or person behind it is like eating wonderful without knowing what it is.

Bernard Haitink nos entrega con este CD los poemas sinfonicos restantes, y nos sigue sorprendiendo, estos sonj registros que no podra escuchar en ningun otro lado y a la imcomparable calidad de este director y la Orquesta Sinfonica de Londres que como siempre nos deslumbra hasta el climax del disfrute musical.

Son muy pocas palabras para describir 6 poemas sinfonicos, La batalla de los hunos es soberbia, Heroide funebre y Hungaria y lo mas expresivo de la tradicion hungara, Die ideale, hamlet y de la cuna a la tumba son sencillamente sorprendentes, Haitink ademas grabo y se incluye en este CD el vals mefisto N°1, asi se convierte en una coleccion imperdible.

Un CD doble, precio economico, la mejor calidad, la mejor interpretación una seleccion no disponible en otro lado, imperdible.