Customer Reviews

Liszt: Sonata in B minor / Nuages gris / La notte / La lugubre gondola II / Funérailles

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This recording is just unbelievable! It is perhaps one of the most perfect recordings of the piece, combining the fire of Argerich, the musical insight of Richter, and the absolute command of sound and color comparable only to Horowitz. Under Zimerman's fingers, the piece becomes an organic whole from beginning to end. If you are a serious musician and collector of fine music, I highly recommend getting this recording.

Incredible - even compared to Horowitz's this Sonata-recording is breathtaking, but i would like to point out that the other performances on this CD are amazing as well: You hardly can get a good recording of the piano version of La Notte and Zimerman plays it so movingly (it is surely the best what You can find by now), La Lugubre Gondola is also played with much understanding although i prefer it to be a little slower and gloomier (like the Erno Szegedi-recording), the Funerailles is PERFECT!!! No other words to describe! Zimerman is not affraid of using the pedal (most pianists are) as indicated in the beginning of the piece, the funeral march makes one cry, the Chopinesque left-hand octaves in the second half are played with incredible evenness (i only heard such delicacy in that passage from Bolet before). The Nuages Gris is played well as well, although a bit too fast in the beginning i felt.
Alltogether - IF YOU LIKE LISZT'S MUSIC YOU HAVE TO GET THIS DISC.

That's really one of the best Liszt Sonatas I own on CD. It's probably the best, but that's very hard to tell, if you know Horowitz (let's go...), Argerich (see what my Steinway can bear), PLETNEV (maybe the most virtuosic interpretation), Gilels ("broad"), Curzon (incredibly risky), Cziffra (3 hands), Pogorelich (surprise), etc...
What I really like about this CD is the beautiful sound quality of the piano. Also listen to the other tracks, it's so abysmal Liszt-
I love it- and you will love it too....

This is a very good performance of the Liszt Sonata that could have been a *great* performance of the Liszt Sonata. Zimmie supposedly spent ten years preparing this work. I believe him, just as I believe him when he says he listened to something like 70 recordings of the Brahms 1st Piano Concerto before making his own recording. In both cases I think he'd have done better to listen to fewer recordings and just attack the piece from his *gut* more. This performance is great technically, with the pianist showing his superbly subtle command of dynamics--some of the shadings are just amazingly nuanced. Listen, for example, to how he handles the first lyrical section, at around six minutes in: gorgeous shading! Another highlight comes at 16:50--such liquid tone. (Why couldn't he have played his Debussy this way??) Another highlight: at 22:00 coming out of a 100-mile-per-hour tear, he slams the brakes, and the deceleration is like a Lamborghini under the control of Mario Andretti, only to roar back to 100 mph again. It's all very thrilling, and let's not get too cerebral here: the Liszt Sonata was in large part a show-off vehicle for the pianist's technique, and Zims does not disappoint in that department. There are times he just explodes with passion and wild abandon, such as the leadup to the recap at around 21:00--thrilling stuff.

Yet Zimerman's weakness, to my ear, is in his interpretation. He over-thinks, over-interprets. So much here is too calculated, and I can't help but wonder if this happens after you've been "preparing" the piece for ten years. There are moments, such as the statement of one of the motifs at 22:40, that are so de-li-ber-ate as to make me wince; it's like an actor who feels he has to emote every line or a writer who must put every third word in italics. Ditto the famous coda at around 26:25, and some lyrical sections, where he roooolls those chords as if to highlight in glow-in-the-dark orange the piece's Romantic pedigree. At times likes these I feel like Zimerman is pounding the music into us with a mallet because he doesn't trust us as listeners. Interpreters such as Richter (particularly Aldeburgh 1966 live, now sadly out of print), Arrau, Levy (also out of print), and even Yundi Li don't feel this need. For that reason, a very good performance missed on being one for the ages.

The other pieces are beautifully played but suffer from the same over-interpretation. I wish KZ would just let the works breathe more; instead I feel like he's imposing his heavy-handed interpretations on them. Works such as Nuages Gris are very atmospheric, and here he never gets out of the way and lets the music speak.

Still, this is worthwhile to add to your collection if you're a Liszt B minor fan, particularly since the two best performances of this piece (the aforementioned Levy and 1966 Aldeburgh Richter) are out of print. Get this recording, but stay open to other interpretations--and keep hoping for the Richter and Levy to come back in print.

Apparently, Zimerman took 10 years to record a Liszt Sonata that met his approval. So it must be good. And it is. As one would expect from this great pianist, everthing is under control, his fingers move as fast as anyone and all is musical. Argerich brings more fire to the piece, Demidenko a bit more grit and bite, Pletnev forgets to use the pedal, Pollini is good but not as good, but in my opinion, Zimerman gives the best overall account of the sonata. Stephen Hough has just released his recording of the Sonata, and having listened to his other Liszt recording, it may well replace Zimerman's version as the King of all Liszt Sonatas. But you won't go wrong if you buy this one.

This is a truly amazing disc. Zimerman has it all: a great sound, a great overall vision of this exceptional work (probably the best work of Liszt) and a stunning virtuosity (listen to the fugato!). For me this is without doubt the best recording of the Liszt sonata, with all respect for all those other great recordings of great masters as Bolet, Argerich, Arrau, Gilels, Pollini, etc.
Do not even hesitate one second, buy this CD!

Zimerman has studied piano construction and design "that is the only way I can attain the sound I have in mind" and always travels with his own grand piano. He is equally careful with recordings. It took ten years for Zimerman to make a recording of Liszt's B minor Sonata that satisfied him. This CD is a must for everyone !!!

I followed along with the score while listening to this recording and was moved to tears, partly in astonishment that someone could play all those notes with such apparent ease. This is a very emotional, one could almost say overwrought performance, but it remains my favorite (and I own several different performances of this piece). For a cooler approach, try Pollini.

Zimerman has studied piano construction and design "that is the only way I can attain the sound I have in mind" and always travels with his own grand piano. He is equally careful with recordings. It took ten years for Zimerman to make a recording of Liszt's B minor Sonata that satisfied him. This CD is a must for everyone !!!

If anything, Zimerman's disc with Liszt's solo piano music is certainly a much better bargain than the Pollini's, recorded at about the same time, for the same label and with nearly the same program. At all fronts. There are more bonuses to the Sonata and the total timing is nicer (about 66 minutes), the liner notes are way superior for they are written by Ernst Burger himself (and even include a rare photograph of Liszt then reproduced for a first time) and, above all, Zimerman plays the B minor Sonata with power and passion Pollini probably never even dreamed of.

My attitude to Krystian Zimerman has undergone a most radical change over the last few years. Once I used to think of him as pretty outstanding in more or less everything he plays, but that was then, many years ago. Now I find his Schubert and Chopin perfectly boring, have no patience with his far too ordinary Debussy, Beethoven and Brahms, and, most unexpectedly, regard his celebrated Liszt recording with Ozawa, which I used to revere, as little more than mindless banging. Apart from his disc with Grieg and Schumann's concerti, I seldom listen to Zimerman these days at all - and this disc I listen to mostly because Karajan does amazing things with the Berliner Philharmoniker. In short, I have come to view Zimerman as an epitome of ordinariness, a kind of Pollini-clone.

That said, I enjoyed Zimerman's Sonata more than I expected. His straightforward reading is certainly not in the league of Bolet, Arrau and Horowitz in terms of originality, but he at least has some kind of personality at the keyboard, much unlike the computerized Pollini. The final climax, for instance, that mighty climax which is characterized by a huge sound, is a most interesting curiosity under Zimerman's fingers: he takes it unusually slowly but achieves a rare and very compelling grandeur. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the previous great climax of the work. Here Krystian stumbles pretty badly indeed, emphasizing the most insignificant details while the melodic line, instead being shaped beautifully and/or powerfully, all but disintegrates. In short, for the most part Zimerman's Sonata is rather ordinary, lacking either the demonism of a Horowitz or the poetry of a Bolet or the insight of a Arrau, but at all events he is far more interesting and worth listening to than the almost unbearably dull Pollini.

The bonus pieces are a most fascinating mixture of (mostly) late works, ranging from some of Liszt's most popular pieces (''Funeiralles'') to some of his most neglected ones (''La Notte''); in between for a good measure the late, bizarre and all but unapproachable ''Nuages gris'' (1881) and ''La lugubre gondola'' (1882) are thrown for a good measure. I daresay Krystian sounds more convincing in most of these pieces only because they are less well-known than the ubiquitous Sonata. The exception, of course, is ''Funerailles'' which has been widely recorded by all and sundry: Horowitz, Bolet, Arrau, Rubinstein, Volodos and who not. Krystian's rendition has an appealing demonism and verve, though his shoddy treatment of the lyrical middle section leaves a great deal to be desired. The beautiful funeral ode ''La Notte'', with the instantly recognizable theme from ''Il Penseroso'', and the hopelessly bleak ''La lugubre gondola'', which reportedly anticipated Wagner's death and funeral, are exquisitely and sensitively played, but not noticeably more so than Leslie Howard's recordings in volumes 3 and 11 of his great series.

The really big problem with this disc is the dismal sound. I continue to be amazed by the exceptionally poor job DG have done with so many, if not all, of their digital recordings of solo piano from the 1980s and the 1990s. This particular disc has an outstandingly clangy, metallic and harsh sound for anything recorded as late as 1990-91 for a major label. The middle register sounds particular awful, as if the strings are hit by real hammers normally used for nails. The sonority in the bass reminds me of a poorly maintained upright piano, rather than of a concert grand in a fine shape. Whatever the reason - recording location, quality of instrument, competence of recording engineers - this is certainly some of the worst piano sound for its age I have ever heard. (The situation slightly improves in the bonus pieces, but not nearly enough.) This is the only aspect of this disc which is no improvement over Pollini's equally typical for the label DDD: Dry, Dull, Drab.

The high quality of the liner notes by Ernst Burger has already been remarked upon, but one gentle criticism need be mentioned as well. This is his claim that Liszt's chaotic nature (or words to that effect) prevented him from ever creating another masterpiece of the same order as the B minor Sonata. Now Herr Burger is an eminent Lisztian scholar whose lavish illustrated biographies are essential for the shelves of every great admirer of Franz Liszt, but he may remember at least the ''Faust Symphony'' and ''Christus'', why not the finest among the symphonic poems and the organ works as well, before writing something like that next time. If he means the works for solo piano only, he may recall that there is no evidence that Liszt ever tried to create another masterpiece on the same scale, not after he had completed the Sonata at any rate. He was too smart not to know that the work is one of a kind.

In conclusion, a fine disc for the collection of every Lisztian, combining good or better performances of works which range from the most popular to the most obscure in Liszt's enormous oeuvre. On the whole, interesting and even intriguing, but neither indispensable nor containing any clear first choices (such as Horowitz's legendary ''Funerailles'' from 1950, for instance). Zimerman's almost constant lack of originality, and occasional carelessness, as well as DG's nearly horrible sound downgrade this CD to four stars.