Customer Reviews

Liszt Waltzes

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Indeed they were! With this landmark recording, made in October 1985, started Leslie Howard's now legendary series of 99 CDs encompassing the complete piano music of Franz Liszt. Surely neither Leslie nor the fellows in Hyperion suspected at the time the colossal dimensions of the project and the fact that, supplements and all, it would take quarter of a century to be completed. (Indeed, it is by no means certain that it has been completed; the Weimar archives may still hide some fine musical secrets.) The beginning seems to have been hard for some two and a half years (until February 1988) had to pass before volume 2 was recorded, but then the project was sped up and by the end of 1999, with the complete recording of the Hungarian rhapsodies, the major part was finished: 95 CDs for 14 years! Recording such unimaginable amount of music (virtually all CDs are over 70 minutes long), and a music that requires a stupendous technique and variety of interpretation, cannot but be uneven. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that in later volumes there is a certain decline in Leslie's playing, perhaps inevitable considering the gruesome recording schedule. That said, even at his worst Leslie never slays (not ''plays''!) Liszt's music with the sledgehammer as many modern virtuosos do. There are even people who have accused Leslie of deliberate rushing for ''budget reasons'' but I do not subscribe to questioning anyone's integrity in such slanderous fashion.

However all that may be, it is a fact that on this CD we have a playing of an absolutely astonishing power and brilliance that have nothing to do with the tired and timid strumming in the first two books of ''Annees de Pelerinage'' (vols. 39 and 43). Even the recording sound seems better than Hyperion's later efforts in the series. It is not just crisp and clean, but it has an agreeable sonority and naturalness as well.

By far the most important works on the disc are the two ''quartets'': the four ''Mephisto'' waltzes and the four pieces bearing the title ''Valse oubilee''. They share a singularly similar misfortune: the first piece of the set (figuratively speaking) is very well known, whereas the other three are all but completely forgotten. Leslie's performances of the latter are the only ones I know of and they show conclusively that these pieces do deserve their place in the standard repertoire. ''Mephisto Waltzes'' Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are on a smaller scale than their ''leader'' but all of them display the same compelling mixture of lyricism and demonism. Note, for instance, the mind-blowing finale of the Second ''Mephisto Waltz'' as an excellent example of a satanic drive and most of the Third ''Mephisto Waltz'' as regards to melting poetry. Leslie plays with superb elan yet with great sensitivity to the inner voices. ''Valses oubilees'' Nos. 2, 3 and 4, again like their ''first companion'' are more like mini copies of the ''Mephisto Waltzes'', but the demonic element is less prominent and has given place to a wistful charm. These, too, are pieces that will bear a regular visit to the concert hall. Indeed, before wrestle with the First ''Mephisto Waltz'' or the B minor Sonata, young and passionate virtuosos would do well to warm their fingers - and minds! - with any of the ''last three'' members of these two ''sets''.

Vladimir Horowitz has made ''Valse oubilee No. 1'' world famous by his life-long dedication to it and ''Mephisto Waltz No. 1'' has been played and recorded by more or less everybody: from Horowitz's highly controversial rendition of a Liszt-Busoni-Horowitz version to Jorge Bolet's elegance and poise to Earl Wild or the young Brendel's demonic virtuosity. If Leslie doesn't quite match Horowitz in the First ''Valse oubilee'', he is certainly greatly superior to him in the First ''Mephisto Waltz'' (here recorded with few minor later additions by Liszt himself). Like Earl Wild, Leslie is on the fast side but his virtuosity is never marred by lack of musicality. This is a dashing recording that easily ranks with those illustrious names mentioned above.

Last but not least, it is interesting to note that all these waltzes save the First ''Mephisto'' one (composed in 1859-62) are among Liszt late works (1881-85), when he was in his seventies. Liszt's unbelievable transformation in his late years - without analogue in music history, as John Ogdon has noted - is well known and these waltzes are excellent introduction to it. On the whole, they are much more accessible for the layman who is not able to grasp the daring harmonic experiments in the shorter - and bleaker! - among Liszt's late works, such as ''Nuages gris'' for instance.

The rest six pieces are all by way of being encores. Two are album leafs from the 1840s, three are charming and graceful miniatures from more or less the same time though they were revised around 1850 (''Valse-Impromptu'', ''Valse melancholique'' and ''Valse de bravoure'') and then there is the extremely important historically, but insignificant musically, ''Bagatelle sans tonalite'' (''what a title, in 1885!'', charmingly exclaims Leslie in his liner notes) which initially, and confusingly, bore the title ''Fourth Mephisto Waltz''. None of these pieces is first-rate but the complete neglect that has befallen them (except the ''Valse Impromptu'' which is recorded occasionally) is hardly just. Any of these works would make an excellent encore piece, especially the album-leaf-like ''Bagatelle sans tonalite''. It is a shame that this piece, just like the real ''Mephisto Waltz No. 4'' had to wait some 80 years (!) for publication. How long will we have to wait before hearing them regularly in concert halls and on record?

All in all, even more than quarter of a century later, Leslie's recording of Liszt's complete waltzes remains a compelling mixture of excellent performances of two famous warhorses and fine renditions of a good many unjustly forgotten masterpieces, most notably ''Mephisto Waltzes'' Nos. 2 and 3 which are simply amazing pieces. By way of conclusion, I would like to quote from Leslie's wonderful liner notes in which he proves that from the very beginning he was the right man to record Liszt's complete piano music - not because of his impressive technique, but because of his deep understanding of Liszt the man based on a genuine sympathy:

''We are accustomed to look benignly upon the shortcomings of the great: if Johann Sebastian Bach should write such a clumsy fugue as the example in the B flat Capriccio we are amused rather than concerned at the, genius's early struggles. But we are less charitable when confronted with achievement of less predictable quality; longueur, banality and technical error even in so great a man as Schubert have not been exempt from unsympathetic criticism. In Liszt's case we have acquired, in the century since his death, a complete critical mythology which has successfully prevented the investigation and performance of many of his finest works. Anyone who is pushing back creative frontiers in a prodigious output and over a long life is bound to produce an uneven body of work where sometimes a sense of experiment outweighs one of achievement. Yet, despite the enormous quantity of the Liszt oeuvre--well over a thousand pieces--there is remarkably little without interest. In order to comprehend and eventually pardon Liszt's imperfections the critical mythology must be attacked. That Liszt was a powerful character and an influential man is beyond dispute. That younger composers from Smetana and Glazunov to Grieg and Macdowell and older contemporaries like Schumann, Berlioz and Wagner asked and received Liszt's assistance is testimony to esteem for the man's music as much as for his generosity. That Liszt propagated the works of other composers old and new by means of piano transcriptions or fantasies need offend no-one--the overtly audience-slaying nature of a number of these works is not, in any case, an essentially unpleasant phenomenon. That Liszt's character was so multi-faceted as to reflect itself in an enormous range of styles is at once an advantage and a defect. But the present writer for one would rather have a hero who tried and didn't always succeed than one who took the eternal safe option. It is essential to respect the sincerity of Liszt's aims: the flatulent and intellectually pusillanimous epithets `Mephistopheles disguised as a priest', `Virtuoso, Prophet, Charlatan', `Thunder, Lightning, Mesmerism, Sex' or `The Tragi-Comedy of a Soul divided against itself' (Ernest Newman at his most miserable) are, at the most charitable, corrosive barnacles of half-truth and small help to the listener. The conflict between the spiritual and the material is as germane to art as it is to life, and if Liszt's nobler aspirations are occasionally tainted with saccharine, or his worldlier offerings sometimes afflicted with a serious overdose of rhetoric, there seems no need to accuse him of posturing in order to explain his lapses from greatness.''

I became familiar with this CD back in the late 1980s while working on a huge project here in Austin, and I fell in love with the performance.

I disagree with the comment about Leslie Howard "running out of gas" in the 1st Mephisto Waltz: he certainly has more than enough technique and stamina to make it through the performance - and then some. I think Jorge Bolet's recording might be somewhat more musical, and de-emphasizing the technique needed to play this monstrously difficult piece; but where Howard really shines is in his completion of the B section of the Fourth Mephisto Waltz using Liszt's sketches. Howard perfectly captures the harmonic structures prevalent in Liszt's very late style and his realization is as perfectly "Liszt"-ian as it's going to get!

This is a selfish comment, but the Second and Third Mephisto Waltzes (which I play) are realized pretty much the way I thought them through when I learned them. I have no problems with either performance, though I re-wrote the last two full lines of MW#3 to give a fuller (and more cruelly dissonant) ending which I thought befitted the piece.

I recommend this CD *most* highly.

Well, Leslie Howard has by now completed his complete Liszt cycle, currently 99 (I think) discs in all, and has revealed to the world once and for all what a wealth of masterpieces Liszt actually wrote. This disc, containing his "complete" waltzes (the Caprice Waltzes - later revisions of the Valse Melancolique and Valse De Bravore - are absent), was the very first volume in the series, and an auspicious start it was. No one could reasonably claim that Howard would be able to challenge all the giants in all of the music he tackled during the series (I mean, Cziffra and Bolet are still mandatory acquisitions for anybody with a cursory interest in music), but his performances of the waltzes are actually great and competitive, even when the titans are thrown into the fray.

Howard's Mephisto waltzes are models of musicianship, brilliance and energy (I don't hear the suggested "running out of steam" either). I agree that Bolet, for instance, may be in a different league in the famous first, but Howard is still admirable - and he clinches this release's claim to mandatory status by including his realization of the fourth (no, it's not the Bagatelle sans tonalite, though this one is included here as well), thoughtfully and idiomatically completed from Liszt's sketches, and the performance is particularly magnificent. There are more dazzling performances of the second and perhaps even third in the catalogue as well, but Howard scores major points on his understanding of the music and intermittently revelatory interpretations of Liszt's ideas.

The three Valses Oubliees following the famous first installment are far better than their lack of fame could perhaps suggest, and Howard imbues them with as much energy and spirit as he does the first. And if he doesn't quite match, say, Horowitz in sparkle with respect to the first, his is still an immensely compelling, vivid, beautiful rendition. The Valse-Impromptu, Valse Melancolique and Valse De Bravoure have more of the salon about them, though they are nevertheless memorably brilliant and compellingly played. The same could perhaps be said of the charming Landler and Album Leaf. The remarkable Bagatelle sans Tonalite is of course far better known (and is far more harmonically gentle than its title may suggest, at least when compared to some of the other late works, including ones given on this disc), and again, the performance is immensely musical and satisfying.

A superb release in its own right, then, with playing of power, sheen and deep musicality - and much more variegated in character than a program consisting exclusively of waltzes may suggest (of course, the main source of variety is the demonic tone poems that are the Mephisto Waltzes), and it should make listeners very tempted to invest in the complete series (now practically repackaged for the bicentenary) - I know I am myself. The sound quality is clean but rich and the liner notes illuminating. Very strongly recommended.

In this recording, Howard delivers an incredible performance of Liszt's diverse Waltzes from the Album Leaf in Waltz Form to the 4th Mephisto Waltz. Any admirer of Liszt will find this recording a welcome addition to a collection.

Howard begins his cycle of the complete music for solo piano by Liszt here. Any doubts about Liszt's capability as a composer should be dispersed by this cycle, and this is a great place to start. Howard's peformances bring the piano wizard's music to life. Warning: this music is addictive, and you may find yourself buying CD after CD, but it's worth it! Long live Liszt.

Howard plays these pieces well, but he has an annoying habit of going at a piece full tilt, then breaking tempo and running out of gas, as in the demanding "Mephisto Waltz #1". It's a very complete collection, to be sure, but for the best Liszt recordings, I'd go with Alfred Brendel, whose early recording of the "Mephisto Waltz #1" will leave you gasping.