Document

  1997
    June 1997
        Instrumental
                Liszt Piano Works and Transcriptions, Volume 1.

Liszt Piano Works and Transcriptions, Volume 1. Arnaldo Cohen (pf).

Naxos (Super budget price) (CD) 8 553852 (71 minutes: DDD).

Impromptu in F sharp, S191. Nuages gris, S199. La lugubre gondola, S200 [No.] Nos. 1 and 2. Unstern: sinistre, disastro, S208. Totentanz, S525. Danse macabre (Saint-Saens), S555. Reminiscences des Huguenots (Meyerbeer), S412.

Here is a tribute to Liszt’s multi-faceted genius as scintillating as it is dark-hued. The first volume of a complete recorded cycle of Liszt’s piano music played by a variety of pianists, it alternates music of a diabolic frisson with works of a numbing spiritual desolation. It also offers a rare opportunity to sample the Totentanz in its solo version, and the Reminiscences des Huguenots in a performance of stunning virtuoso glory.

Arnaldo Cohen is as poetically and imaginatively intrepid as he is technically coruscating, and all these performances offer refinement and ferocity in equal proportion. Few pianists could identify or engage so closely with music which hovers on the edge of silence or extinction (Nuages gris, La lugubre gondola Nos. 1 and 2), “grey with the pain of disillusion”, or which sparks and sports with a truly devilish intent (Danse macabre, Totentanz and so on). Try the build-up at 7'30" in the Danse macabre where the music emerges from Cohen’s fingers supercharged with malevolence. On the other hand he can send the F sharp Impromptu spiralling into a true sense of its ecstasy, or momentarily inflect Nuages gris (2'04") in a manner that accentuates rather than detracts from its abstraction and economy. He makes something frighteningly bleak out of Unstern (or “Evil Star”), with its savagely dissonant climax and unresolved hymnal solace, yet is no less at home in Reminiscences des Huguenots, dismissing ambuscades of treacherous skips, octaves and every other technical terror with a telling mix of verve and nonchalance.

These, then, are performances of rare lucidity, virtuoso voltage and trenchancy, and they have been excellently recorded.

BM



		Here is a tribute to Liszt’s multi-faceted genius as scintillating as it is dark-hued. The first volume of a complete recorded cycle of Liszt’s piano music played by a variety of pianists, it alternates music of a diabolic frisson with works of a numbing spiritual desolation. It also offers a rare opportunity to sample the Totentanz in its solo version, and the Reminiscences des Huguenots in a performance of stunning virtuoso glory.



		Arnaldo Cohen is as poetically and imaginatively intrepid as he is technically coruscating, and all these performances offer refinement and ferocity in equal proportion. Few pianists could identify or engage so closely with music which hovers on the edge of silence or extinction (Nuages gris, La lugubre gondola Nos. 1 and 2), “grey with the pain of disillusion”, or which sparks and sports with a truly devilish intent (Danse macabre, Totentanz and so on). Try the build-up at 7'30" in the Danse macabre where the music emerges from Cohen’s fingers supercharged with malevolence. On the other hand he can send the F sharp Impromptu spiralling into a true sense of its ecstasy, or momentarily inflect Nuages gris (2'04") in a manner that accentuates rather than detracts from its abstraction and economy. He makes something frighteningly bleak out of Unstern (or “Evil Star”), with its savagely dissonant climax and unresolved hymnal solace, yet is no less at home in Reminiscences des Huguenots, dismissing ambuscades of treacherous skips, octaves and every other technical terror with a telling mix of verve and nonchalance.



		These, then, are performances of rare lucidity, virtuoso voltage and trenchancy, and they have been excellently recorded.