Nojima Plays Liszt

Nojima (Artist), Minoru: pno......... (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 5, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Reference Recordings
• Run Time: 59 minutes
• ASIN: B00000157J
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,657 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Mephisto Waltz (I & II), for piano No. 1 (Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke), S. 514 (LW A189)

2. La Campanella II, etude for piano in G sharp minor (Grand Paganini Étude No. 3), S. 141/3 (LW A173/3)

3. Harmonies du soir, for piano (Transcendental Etude No. 11), S. 139/11 (LW A172/11)

4. Feux-follets, etude for piano in B flat major (Transcendental Etude No. 5), S. 139/5 (LW A172/5)

5. Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (LW A179)

Editorial Reviews

"Demands recommendation alongside history’s best recorded performances." – Stereophile

Connoisseurs of great piano playing will love this classic reissue. A reclusive cult figure who records even less often than he plays in public, Nojima is Japan’s most celebrated concert pianist and a Cliburn Competition Silver Medal winner. Long out of print—brought back by popular demand! Newly remastered from the original analog tapes in HDCD. A contemporary pianist that evokes the wonders of the golden age of pianists typified by Horowitz, Godowsky, Lhevinne, and the other giants of that period. Nojima performs with Japan’s major orchestras, including frequent appearances with the New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Kyushu Symphony, and Gunma Symphony in domestic subscription performances and as a soloist on overseas tours, as well as collaborating with orchestras and conductors such as the Montreal Symphony and Charles Dutoit. His 1988 recording Minoru Nojima Plays Liszt quickly became a reference! work, named Best Recording of the Month by Stereo Review, which described it as "a stunning demonstration of technique put at the service of profoundly musical ends".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heroic Pianism, August 12, 2003

By 

David A. Kemp (Plano, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nojima Plays Liszt (Audio CD)

This is an extraordinary recording. Nojima may well be the finest pianist most people have never heard of. Minoru Nojima was a child prodigy in Japan, won a major nationwide competition there as a teenager, studied with Lev Oborin in Moscow and then with Constance Keene and Abram Chasins in New York, and burst upon the international music scene as a winner of the Van Cliburn piano competition in 1969. Although known and highly respected amongst pianists as a "pianist's pianist," he is not well known to most music lovers, largely because he doesn't like to make recordings and has made extremely few. This technically superb, rich-sounding digital recording was made in 1986 by Keith Johnson in the Civic Auditorium of Oxnard, California, for the San-Francisco-based audiophile label Reference Recordings; Nojima plays a tonally beautiful Hamburg Steinway concert grand.

Franz Liszt was of course the leading piano virtuoso of his day, and he wrote these pieces for his own concerts. Hence they bristle with formidable technical difficulties and challenges. These are surmounted by Nojima without breaking a sweat; he almost makes them sound easy. His playing here is a revelation. He is a consummate virtuoso, and his huge, effortless technique is often mind-boggling, but is always at the service of a profound grasp of and genuinely idiomatic feeling for the Liszt piece he is performing. Indeed, his Liszt playing--with a real command of legato, of cantabile singing tone, and with dazzling pyrotechnics nicely integrated with poetry, sensitivity, a feeling for the phrase, the long line, the architecture of the piece--is in the grand tradition of Arrau and Bolet, the two greatest Liszt pianists of recent decades. This recording should be heard and treasured by anyone who loves Liszt's piano music, and/or by anyone who admires breathtaking pianism.

(Note for audiophiles: I compared this CD to Jorge Bolet's series of digital recordings of Liszt piano works on Decca/London. Of the major classical labels, Decca/London has long been my favorite for sound quality. But in this comparison, the Decca/London recordings are not even close in engineering quality. Which prompts this reasonable audiophile question: if Keith Johnson, working for the small audiophile label Reference Recordings, can capture the immediacy, brilliance, depth, and richness of piano tone that we hear here, why can't the major classical labels, with all their resources, engineer recordings of comparable excellence?)

The success of this CD led to a second Reference Recordings CD of Nojima playing Ravel. It too is exceptionally fine, also enjoys state-of-the-art piano sound, and can be confidently recommended to anyone who enjoys this recording.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tastefully virtuosic. Excellent Interpretation, May 2, 2002

By 

Macro Micro (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nojima Plays Liszt (Audio CD)

Having attempted on a few occasions two of the pieces on this disk -- Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and La Campanella -- I had a few expectations in mind. Upon listening to the latter, I realized immediately several flaws in my own approach, particularly in the repeated d-sharps in the introduction and in the highly chromatic middle sections. Nojima's delicacy in the introduction is mesmorizing, and I have spent many an hour at the keyboard trying to replicate the apparent ease with which he plays.

The Mephisto Waltz is also executed with similar confidence and attention to detail. Although not my favorite of Liszt's Waltzes, this recording is a gem.

In general, this is an excellent example of how wonderful Liszt can be when done *right*. The level of difficulty found in this music exceeds that of nearly any other romantic-era composer, but the more fundamental content -- the form, harmony, and other compositional factors -- is treated in a complete, intellegent, and artistic manner. When approached in a purely methodical manner, this music can come off as being self-serving or as an excercise, but Nojima's treatment gives it the sensible, sensual, and aesthetic context that it deserves.

Mephisto Waltz - ****1/2
La Campanella - *****
Harmonies du Soir - *****
Feux Follets - *****
Sonata in b minor - *****

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Musician of Great Importance, November 23, 1999

By 

Rodrigo (Reston, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nojima Plays Liszt (Audio CD)

It is truly a shame that the name Minoru Nojima is not well known in this country. In the liner notes for the disc he is aptly referred to as a "pianist's pianist." He is an artist of the highest order. For fans of the music of Franz Liszt, or for pianophiles in general, this disc is a must. From the very first rhythmically driving notes of the Mephisto Waltz, to the sublime ending of the Sonata in B minor, Minoru Nojima establishes himself as not only a complete master of keyboard technique, technique in the highest sense, but also as a most sensitive and intellectually piercing musician who has completely digested and transformed these masterpeices of virtuosic and emotional display. Throughout the disc, Nojima pays great attention to the structure of the works, never getting lost in athletic prowress, as so many of his contemporaries do. His Mephisto Waltz is the one of the finest I have heard (although not quite as searing as Kapell's version). With his fearsome technique always in service of the music, Nojima tackles the acrobatic La Campanella with sensitivity and virtuosity. Harmonies du Soir is a beatifully balanced account of the work. The treacherous finger-buster Feaux Follets is played to the hilt. His performance of this miniature masterpiece is one of the finest on disc and should be listened to alongside Richter's and Kissin's interpretations. Nojima's talent for seeing the big picture in large forms is clearly evident in his treatment of the B-minor Sonata. From beginning to end, you know you are in the hands of a master interpreting a master. This album is an outstanding example of music making of the highest order, and it should be in everyone's record collection.