Customer Reviews

Liszt: 12 Etudes d'Execution Transcendante

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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Etudes are piano studies, designed to instruct the listener and the player in various aspects of the instrument and piano techniques. For Liszt, these works were another opportunity to show his worth as a composer while giving his slew of students at Weimar a living, breathing textbook from which to improve themselves. The pieces range from three-minute reflections to ten-minute keyboard bacchanals. Along the way, Liszt incorporates everything he knew. As a composer, he thinks orchestrally on the piano, using ten fingers to create the illusion of multiple instruments playing in counterpoint.

Ms. Ott plays these formidable pieces with a liquid, singing tone, flying up and down the keyboard as she tackles Liszt's wide octave leaps, arpeggios, trills, and other demands upon the hands. From the opening Prelude, (No. 1) she plays this music with a combination of technical finesse and wild abandon, keeping sight of Liszt's overall architecture as she rides her piano into the dizzying heights of his imagination.

It's all here in these twelve works: the hand-crossing gallop of Mazeppa (No. 4), tolling pre-Wagnerian funeral bells of Vision (No. 6), the insistent rhythms of The Wild Hunt (No. 8). Ms. Ott unleashes her Romantic soul on the melancholy meanderings of Ricordanza (No. 9), playing the trills and arpeggios with a liquid ease and plenty of legato. Harmonies de Soir (No. 11) seems to melt into nothingness at its close.

The final Etude, Chasse Niege (No. 12) features a cascade of notes at each end of the keyboard, oceanic swells of arpeggiated chords with the main theme singing majestically, somewhere in the middle. Here, Liszt is using the "third hand" trick, playing the main theme with the thumbs as the hands roam the keyboard. In the hands of Ms. Ott, what might be a cheap effect becomes a study in virtuosity, played with the utmost in musicanship and consummate taste.

What's more interesting, Alice's performance is surprisingly mature for a 19-year old girl. Sounds incredible, but it's actually a simple calculation: as Bryce Morrison himself tells us in his liner notes, Alice, a product of an interesting cross-breeding between a German father and a Japanese mother, was born in 1988 in Munich; and the present recording was made in 2008. Well, this makes Alice twenty, that's true, but in something between interview and exam with Mr Morrison, which gives the impression of being too carefully prepared, she mentions that she was 19 when she recorded the Transcendentals for her DG debut. Presumptuous little girl! By the way, another fascinating detail from the liner notes: Alice apparently has made a habit of performing the complete cycle in concert, and in combination with Beethoven's Waldstein or Appassionata! Rather a superhuman effort!

Despite these impressive for her tender age credentials, I was very sceptical, to say the least, about this recording. However, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, if not exactly exhilarated. Leaving aside great technique and huge sound as things rather easy to achieve in a modern recording studio, in terms of musicianship Alice is rather ordinary, with but a few and rather unsuccessful attempts at originality; perhaps the most annoying example is the ending of 'Mazeppa' where a jarring tempo change occurs. That said, considering how many times how violently have these works been raped by moronic banging, Alice is a wonderful and consistently musical exception. Despite the fiasco at the finale, her 'Mazeppa' is a dramatic and powerful interpretation. So are her renditions of the A minor study and 'Vision', neither of which is as rushed as usual. In Alice's hands 'Ricordanza' and 'Harmonies du Soir' may somewhat lack lyricism, but they do have a good deal of passion to compensate. Of course she rushes the outer sections of 'Wilde Jagd', but she is not alone there. Despite some awkward passages, 'Chasse-neige' and 'Feux follets' are not without the bleak and whimsical colours, respectively, that suit them so well. Indeed, the quiet ending of 'Chasse-neige', if not entirely original, is a stroke of genius nonetheless. In fact, there is only one study in which Alice is entirely disappointing: 'Eroica'. For some obscure reason, she plays some of the most dramatic chords rather quietly and thus makes the etude sound like a parody of heroism.

The recorded sound is the usual for DG: dry, flat and often shrill, with little warmth but with a great deal of over-powered bass. The balance between the high and low registers is often precariously unstable. At least it is fairly listenable, if hardly having anything to do with imitation of a concert hall.

Unfortunately, Alice has come too young in a world too old. Having being treated sumptuously with the Transcendental Studies of Jorge Bolet and Claudio Arrau, it would be preposterous - for me - to give five stars to this disc. Indeed, I am pretty sure Alice herself is largely dissatisfied with her recording. At least she ought to be if she wants to develop further. There is a long and hard away she is in the very beginning of. Nobody can hope to achieve any kind of final interpretation - if such thing is possible at all - at the age of 19, especially as regards to pieces of endless variety such as the Transcendentals. For originality may well be something you are born with, but it does not necessarily show up early, nor remain the same throughout the life. On the other hand, Alice doesn't need many allowances for her age (just a half star) in order to get four full stars. She may be somewhat conventional, but she at least is no mindless banger who takes these studies as technical exercises worthy of manual assassination. If Alice does not become a victim of The Kissin Syndrome, there is a fair chance that she may turn into something of lasting value.

Alice Sara Ott is one of those wunderkinds whose genius is yet to fully bloom. One gasps with amazement at her 12 Etudes but my comparison is with Jorge Bolet whose concert I attended in Sydney, Australia several years ago. After the concert I purchased several of his Liszt CDs including the Transcendental Etudes. Take Mazeppa. Alice takes it at breakneck speed but Jorge takes time to point out the subtleties. Not surprising considering the age difference & considering that "[Bolet] the greatest pianist in the Western hemisphere." (Emil Gilels, 1988). Alice's day will come. In the meantime, she is much easier on the eye than old Jorge.

it is quite evident that this young lady plays these pieces as etudes in the strict sense of the term: she in exercising! With some success, e.g. in No 7. But over vast passages she serves undifferentiated pulp. Nearly always too tumultuous, clattering. Not the best method to produce sound. In slow passages, e.g. No 9, she immediately comes near to boredom. The first pages of No.11 are simply trivial, the slightest moments of mystery (Richter!) are missing. Sentimental rubati are misplaced in No 10. The question one may ask is why DG publishes an intermediate product. Perhaps in the realistic assessment that she never will approach the capabilities of Ovchinnikov or Kissin.