12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Liszt's Concertante music, Part II, December 22, 2002
This review is from: Liszt: Music For Piano And Orchestra 2 / Howard (The Complete Music For Solo Piano) (Audio CD)
If the first volume was great, THIS volume tops that with even more rarities, including the original "Totentanz" with an alternate opening and finale (and even an alternate variation insert included as a seperate track), the long-lost "De Profundis" Fantasy (Of which its manuscript Howard himself had to complete the last few measures), the concertante version of Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasie" that Liszt re-arranged with a symphonic part, Weber's "Konzertstuck in F", where Liszt took the liberty of rewriting the piano part (but leaving the orchestral arrangement intact), and several other treats including all-new recordings of Concerto #2 and Hungarian Fantasy.
But there's a third disc that features the biggest curiosity of all: a concerto believed to be written by Sophie Menter with the guiding assistance of Liszt, then orchestrated by none other than Tchaikovsky! Howard explains some of the details in the liner notes.
Again, yet another MUST HAVE if you're a lover of this music!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A musical miracle, August 24, 2004
This review is from: Liszt: Music For Piano And Orchestra 2 / Howard (The Complete Music For Solo Piano) (Audio CD)
This 2-CD set is full of known and less known, but always outstanding and very musically performed works for piano and orchestra by Franz Liszt. The great surprise for me was the de-Profundis Concerto which is usually listed as an "unfinished" work. Lesley Howard finished it in such a masterful and congenial way that I was not able to distinguish the additions from the original. The de-profundis theme is, of course, known from the piano piece "Pensees des morts", but this seems to be the only published appearance of this beautiful theme which shows Liszt's incredible harmonic powers. For someone who likes this theme it is a revelation to meet it in its first elaboration in this concerto by young Liszt, already displaying all his splendid harmonic colors.
A second surprise is on the second CD. The well-known "Totentanz" has a de-Profundis version, with another appearance of this haunting theme!
These two concertos would alone make buying this set a must for all admirers of Liszt.
Lesley Howard deserves our gratitude also for his painstaking
scholarship in recording all the published and unpublished works of Franz Liszt.
Helmut Moritz
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