Customer Reviews

Liszt: Années de pèlerinage (Complete Recording)

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Lazar Berman plays the complete "Années de pèlerinage"; The Première Année - Suisse, S.160, the Deuxième Année - Italie, S.161, and the Supplement aux Années de pèlerinage - Venezia E.Napoli, S.162. brillliantly.

Bits and pieces of the "Années de pèlerinage" are heard in the concert hall, but typically we hear all the pieces together only in a recording or video. The first two, S.160& S.161 were written when Liszt and his married mistress, Countess Marie d'Agoult, left France to avoid the scandal of her being pregnant with their first of three children. The last set of piece, S.162, was written much later near the end of Liszt's life.

In S.160 Liszt painted landscapes on the piano. In S.161 Liszt commented on art, poetry and literature. In S.162 Liszt seems to be reconciling his life, beginning here with "Angelus! Priere aux anges gardiens" ending with "Sursum corda"

Liszt pushed the envelop as to what was technically possible for a mere pianist, and what music could be brought forth from a mere 88 keys. Lazar Berman is up to the musical and technical challange of Liszt.

Like most listeners, I cannot help but be awed by the "Valee d'Obermann", and "Orage". Throughout the Années, Liszt (like Beethoven) used the piano like it was an orchestra.

I was not ready for Liszt when I was younger. The complexity of the music was lost on me. Now I hear Debussy, Wagner, and perhaps even Schoenberg in his music.

This is brilliant piano music, brilliantly played. I would highly recommend this recording to anyone adding Liszt, or more Liszt, to a collection.

I have played the Third Annèe for years, and it's one of my "bread and butter" pieces. I know this music inside and out, yet I have never heard a recording of this Third Annèe that I really cared for.

In Liszt's later works, every note counts for something: there is neither one note too many or one note too few. Berman captures this perfectly. As such, pieces which are interpretively *very* difficult to play, such as the first of the Ville d'Este threnody and the Funeral March are incisive, and at the same time they "soar." Berman at once makes you aware of the structure of the piece, how all the elements of the piece fit together -- and yet propels the music forward.

Berman's performance of "Angelus!" is the ONLY performance I've heard of this piece which *exactly* captured the mood suggested by the Scriptural reference (the Angel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she is carrying the Savior of the world). He exactly captures the reverence of the piece, so as that every single note counts for something. All the other versions I've heard of Angelus! were superficial and much, MUCH too fast.

The "Sursum corda" with its five-page, continuous crescendo actually has a continuous crescendo which lasts five pages, yet does not suffocate itself in a massive tsunami of sound and you can still hear the recurring eight measure theme which forms the structural framework of the piece all throughout the performance.

Berman's "Third Annèe" hit me with the force of a revelation. After hearing Berman's recording of the piece, I stopped and rethought *everything* about these pieces, conceptually, interpretively, structurally - so when I perform these again it will be a completely different -- and hopefully more mature performance. Simply put: Berman's is the gold standard by which all other performances of the Third Annèe must be measured. This performance is just about as good as it gets!

Oh, boy, what a majestic letdown this box set was! I am truly stupefied by the lavish praise accorded to this recording, for both artistically and sonically it is a nearly complete failure.

I will admit right away that I have long since been prejudiced to Lazar Berman, especially to his Liszt, especially to his celebrated recordings of the Transcendental Etudes which, though I have come to see some merit in them, I still think too fast and too insensitive. Be that as it may, I was quite ready to give Mr Berman, in addition to the benefit of doubt, as open and unbiased mind as I could. Being a passionate Lisztian, I think I can safely claim I did in fact do that. Strangely enough, Mr Berman's complete recording of 'Années de pèlerinage' greatly surpassed even the greatest prejudices I could have had.

To say that his performance is very uneven is indeed a gross understatement. Lazar Berman seems to have little idea of the decent tempi, to begin with. Occasionally he slows down so greatly, that the result is all but pure travesty. The most abominable example is 'Angelus' which is more than 10 minutes long (!), nearly twice as long as Leslie Howard's; it goes without saying that a meditative piece like that would benefit from slow tempo - but within a reason. Similarly, Berman's 'Sposalizio' goes way over what is reasonable in terms of slowness; he is even slower than the notoriously slow Jorge Bolet; then again, slow tempi in Bolet's hand create miracles Berman is obviously and painfully incapable of. The man may well be sincere, but such slow tempi in Berman's hands sound contrived and artificial to me, as if he deliberately tries to redeem himself for his shameful rushing of the Transcendentals in his youth. Speaking of tempi, Berman is fond of the other extremity too: the outer parts of his 'Tarantella' are ridiculously rushed. What is even worse is that Berman often forgets that the piano does have pedals; his playing regularly degenerates into percussive and wooden banging. Even Berman's legendary technical prowess seems to have taken a day off during the recording sessions. He is decently capable to pull off 'Orage' and the 'Tarantella' successfully, but he cannot hold a candle to the fiery renditions of Aldo Ciccolini. On the whole, Lazar Berman lacks either passion or poetry in his playing, or, most often, he lacks both.

To be fair to Lazar Berman, he does have several fine moments, particularly in 'La chapelle de Guillaume Tell' where, for once, he gets the slow tempo quite right and creates a fine interpretation or remarkable power. Likewise, his pretty fast tempo in 'Pastorale' sounds charming. At his best, in any of the other 24 pieces Lazar Berman is dependable but hardly recommendable; certainly, his performances here are not in the least 'definitive' or any kind of 'reference'. At his worst, which is unfortunately much more often the case, he is to my mind totally unlistenable.

To be absolutely fair to Lazar Berman, he is partly letdown by simply horrible sound. It beggars belief that this recording was made as late as 1977, for DG and in the Herkulessaal in Munich. The sound is flat, shallow and brittle, with harsh sounds in the high register and total lack of depth in the lower one. The quiet passages usually sound way too distant or muffled, the loud ones take you straight under the lid and all but knock you down. If DG had been capable of shame at all, they really should have been ashamed to have produced such crap of recording, ever. Very poor sound is an understatement indeed!

Lazar Berman's complete recording of 'Années de pèlerinage' is still worth having - at such a bargain price at least. It might - or might not - bear an occasional listening for an interesting touch here and there, only too seldom alas. But taken as a whole or piece by piece, Berman's mindless blend of banging and sleeping is hopelessly inferior to Aldo Ciccolini's passionate yet refined artistry as displayed in his splendid complete recording on EMI (in fabulous early stereo from 1961); even Leslie Howard on Hyperion (vols. 12, 39, 43), who is by no means without weak spots, puts Berman to shame in terms of musicianship and technique; I don't even want to mention Jorge Bolet's complete recordings of the first two 'years' made for DECCA in the 1980s: these are rarefied planes Berman never even dreamed of. Otherwise, the box set is beautifully produced, with a nice photo of Villa d'Este on the cover and a beautiful booklet with fine essays (the one in English is by Humprey Searle himself, apparently written for the original release in the 1970s) and several gorgeous black-and-white photos. Too bad that such finely presented box set of a great work so seldom recorded in its entirety should be such a great disappointment artistically as well as sonically.

I Love Liszt and his Années de pèlerinage is one of my favorite complete recordings!! I had this years ago and I'm so glad that I was able to purchase this again. Great service, very good customoer service!!! Thanks

A wonderful and insightful performance of these import works for solo piano. Quality of the recording is very good - a true reference recording of these works.

To put it quite simply, I don't think you can go wrong with this complete set. I like this as much as Bolet's, but this set is complete. Berman takes a more "virtuosic" approach to these pieces, while I think Bolet plays them a bit slower and more poetic. I found no problems with the sound at all. Great set for sure.

Classics Today gave this performance a 10 out of 10 for artistic quality, and a 9 out of 10 for sound quality, making it the perfect referential performance, without the special touches that some others might have added to the piece.