Customer Reviews

Liszt: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2; Totentanz

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Younger pianist Eldar Nebolsin has arrived in our recording catalogs after winning two world competitions. In 1992, he was grand prize winner in the Santander competition, also garnering a special prize for Mozart concerto playing. Then in 2005, he again won first prize in the first ever Richter piano competition, repeating again his special recognition for Mozart concerto playing.

Now he arrives on Naxos with the two Liszt concertos, plus Totentanz for piano and orchestra. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic partners him, led by Russian Vasily Petrenko who is principal conductor now in Liverpool. Petrenko graduated in St. Petersburg, then started his conducting career in Russia, and he, too, has won several music competitions.

Speaking of Richter, one of the enduring recorded standards for performing these Liszt concertos was certainly set by Sviatoslav Richter himself in a famous Phillips disc with Kyril Kondrashin leading the LSO. Other high marks for comparisons might include Lazar Berman with Carlo Maria Giulini leading the Vienna Symphony, Barry Douglas with Jun'ichi Hirokami leading the LSO, Krystian Zimmerman with Seiji Ozawa leading Boston, Emmanuel Ax with Salonen leading the Philharmonia London, Jerome Rose in Budapest with Rico Saccani leading, ... plus don't forget Boris Berezovsky, Jorge Bolet, Claudio Arrau, Josef Bulva, Alfred Brendel, Julius Katchen, Arnoldo Cohen, and Claire Marie Le Guay on French Accord import. Oh, keyboard wizard Kemal Gekic with veteran Paul Freeman leading a Czech band.

If we want stellar performances of the first concerto only, we must add Artur Rubinstein, Martha Argerich, Earl Wild, Yundi Li, and two underground sleepers - Santiago Rodriguez, and Vardan Mamikonian.

The good news is that Eldar Nebolsin and Vasily Petrenko with Liverpool can really hold their own against the competition, plentiful as it is. All involved offer up buckets of typical Lisztian bravura, fire, and contrast. Tempos are mainstream, and well-judged throughout. (I hope Naxos issues this one in super audio, along with the Sherbakov Tchaikovsky second piano concerto?) Nebolsin is serving up more than fiery gesture, however. He seems to have an etched intellectual touch in these works that often reminds this listener of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, without in the slightest becoming mannered or eccentric. So Nebolsin casts an unexpectedly intense modern light on this music at the same time he burns up the Lisztian keyboard with traditional athletic prowess.

This mix of hot Romance and modern clarity helps raise the Totentanz to higher levels. And the band under Petrenko is with Nebolsin every step of the way in the Totentanz. For once, its Dies Irae variations do not tire, nor wear out their musical welcome with overdone hothouse fervor. Nebolsin and Petrenko seem to be channeling Slavic passion as well as that sort of uncanny cosmic humanist intellect we associate in literature with, say, Tolstoy, Pushking, Akhmatova, Pasternak, Yevtushenko, and Solzhenitsyn.

Gee, I guess this new Naxos release is really something after all, even compared to a football field of worthy competitors still available in the catalog. Top-notch among the Naxos achievements so far, then. Super audio, Naxos?

Liszt's Piano Concertos present much opportunity for sonic and musical fireworks. Very much in Liszt's own piano playing style, they demand bravura, excitement and complete commitment. Naxos has filled out this disc with the demonic Totentanz which is very much in the same mould.

Performance: 3
The whole adventure feels like it is drifting - just as another reviewer describes. The performance is very underpowered. This is particularly so of the brass who consistently refuse to rip into that distinctly Lisztian writing. One should feel the resemblance to some of the showpiece orchestral works, but this is never the case. Indeed, everyone concerned seems to downplay these works. The only exception to this is some radiant solo cello playing in the Second Concerto. It is quite evident overall that the RLPO is not on top form. There is even some indiscipline in the strings; their playing being sometimes uneven in tone and ensemble. This is mostly apparent in the violins. The RLPO are capable of much more than this and a prime example would be their recording of the Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony under the same conductor.

The pianist is also quite sedate. Despite some reasonably good playing and a sunny tone, Nebolsin refuses to play up Liszt's score in the manner one would expect. The playing often feels un-virtuosic. It certainly doesn't capture the imagination. Fortunately, the performance on the whole picks up in Totentanz, but we should still expect more.

Sound: 3.5
It isn't bad. It isn't great. The sound is very detailed and has good clarity. This is coupled with a well captured sound image and the cleanly caught characteristics of Liverpool's Philharmonic hall. Unfortunately, there is much less bloom and body in the sound than we would hope for. In general, the sound feels somewhat straight jacketed. This is certainly not Naxos' worst sound but of modern recording we expect better.

Interpretation: 3
Petrenko appears uninvolved, which is unusual for him. This is a much uninspired reading of accompaniment. The big, brazen tunes are rather smoothed over or at least not delivered with intensity of excitement. This is again surprising when one considers Petrenko's recording of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. As said, Nebolsin is also distinctly un-Liszt-like at the piano. Where is the showmanship, the excitement and adrenalin? Where is the depth and breadth of expression?

The advice is clear: look elsewhere for the best Liszt Concertos. This doesn't need to be completely disregarded; it does have some good musical qualities.

The previous reviewer echoes a recent Gramophone rave for this CD, which claimed (incorrectly) that this was Naxos' first venture into the Liszt concertos and (incredibly) that Eldar Nebolsin, a 35-year-old Uzbeki pianist who later studied in Madrid, could be favorably compared to Richter in this repertoire. That's as much as claiming that Nebolsin is the second coming. He isn't, but he's not a cookie-cutter competiiton winner, either. His clean, assured technique is backed up with considerable musicality. The same can be said for Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool orchestra -- but hardly anyone tunes in to Liszt's concertos for the accompaniment. In both cases, there's a certain lack of tension and coherence when the music becomes lyrical, a droping off into politeness.

If you want a budget account of these three warhorses in very good, updated sonics, with especially powerful rendering of piano sound, this is a competitive CD, yet another sign that Naxos has raised its standards far above its early years. But let's face it, there's nothing left in these hollow Lisztian vessels except the thrill of hearing bravura playing at its most incendiary -- the calmer parts of the two concertos idle along until the next cascade of notes is ready to be fired off -- and the eminent virtuosity of Argerich and Richter is not in evidence here.

Let's face it, Liszt's concerted works for piano and orchestra -- the two concertos and the piano/orchestra version of Totentanz -- are not great music. They tend to be episodic, patchy in their construction, sometimes sparse in their melodic materials, and downright vulgar in spots. But in the right hands they can be exciting concert experiences. Although there are many recordings of these works, there are few that rise to the heights. Among those are the versions by Richter Liszt: The Two Piano Concertos; The Piano Sonata and by Krystian Zimerman Liszt: Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 2; Totentanz. Eldar Nebolsin is a thirty-five year old Uzbeki pianist long resident in Madrid and he has fingers, musicianship and expressivity to spare. His earlier release of the Rachmaninov Preludes was greeted with almost universal acclaim (including mine) Rachmaninov: Preludes. He does not let us down in these performances of the concertos and the Totentanz. And he receives pretty good support from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko. Their violin section seems considerably more silken than when I last heard anything from them. Recorded sound is fine although the famously cheeky triangle part in the third section of the First Concerto (which led to its initially sneering designation by Eduard Hanslick as 'The Triangle Concerto') seems subdued, barely audible.

The Richter disc -- which does not include the Totentanz (no loss, in my book; I've never been able to warm up to it with its incessant repetitions of the 'Dies irae') -- is currently at a very low price here at Amazon. But the sound is ancient. The Zimerman disc, at full price, has been my favorite recent recording. And indeed it still is my favorite. But the Nebolsin disc costs only about half as much as the Zimerman and that could be a deciding factor for some shoppers.

Scott Morrison