Search - Liszt, Kempf :: 12 Transcendental Etudes

Freddy K & Liszt: Brash, Heroic, Lyrical, Sweet, Flashy - Am

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 08/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So what is great about this CD?



Let us start with the piano used, and as captured by the recorded sound. Freddy Kempf is using a Yamaha Grand in what sounds like absolutely tip-top shape. If you had not already read about Yamaha in the CD booklet, you could be forgiven for thinking this might be a Bosendorfer from Vienna, or even rarer, a Fazioli from Italy. The Yamaha is technicolor, rich resonating woods, and the metal cores strong in each tone, with the most sensuous caress or stroke of the hammer. This particular keyboard was born, not just built, and seems to already possess the spirit of Liszt and other high Romantic Era composers, pulsing in its nature.



The venue is at the former Stockholm academy of music, and just as Scaninavian architects/designers have made, and continue to make, their marks - the room is just about unsurpassably right for this piano. You have to give the engineer(s) and producers at BIS great credit - they know when to stop because they have found the sweet spot in this room.



As the resounding richness of the available piano suggests, Freddy Kempf adopts a very large sounding canvas here. His musical approach is nothing short of orchestral. You can easily imagine overheated ladies in European salon audiences swooning with a hot blush that turns into palpitations that becomes either a fainting spell or a hysterical rush to the front.



There is not one over-percussive, over-hammered, false sounding note in this performance. Like the revered Claudio Arrau, say, Freddy simply always serves up a huge, huge, huge tone that sings, sings, sings. When Liszt takes his hands up and down the keyboard, we get a resounding wave of surging melody, built upon Neptunian foundation waves of the lower strings being struck, magisterially. Nor does this particular instrument in Freddy's hands get thin when he goes quiet or pensive or yearning. At low volumes, the hints of chocolate, cinnamon, coffee, and dark red glowing rubies still hang in the air.



Well it is a bit much, really. But perhaps this is an approach that perhaps Liszt would have himself recognized as a kindred spirit.



The hidden Freddy secret? (Always dangerous to test tube analyze this sort of piano wizardry.)



I would say that he is in intimate communication with the harmonic structure and flow that undergirds all the best in Liszt's music. He adopts tempos that serve structural purposes, and lets loose on the harmony as much as on the expressive melodies. His time is never rigid, always breathing. His rubato never goes dry, and never adopts artificial gestures. Considering how very near the Romantic cliffs this cycle of twelve incredibly difficult piano pieces (etudes) is as written; these qualities are nearly an innate, rare sort of heroism in Liszt playing, at least as we often get it today.



It takes muscle to get this far, no doubt. And it also took great heart, great affection, for that old ham of an actor, Franz Liszt. And it also took mind.



These twelve pieces are officially called etudes - i.e., piano exercises. But forget Czerny or Heller. Liszt runs with the big composers, going all the way back to J.S. Bach himself whose studies never ceased to be deep music.



After this whole serving of the Liszt twelve transcendental studies, one feels nourished and sated, not all that ready to spin another CD on the player yet. I've gone back for another round on many occasions, wanting to hear a more intentional rehearsal of the intangible structures and harmonies that make this cycle something much more than, say, pigging out on a hefty box of Godiva truffles.



Five stars, no doubt about it. This CD is prime. Great modern piano playing. Great Romantic Era flash and substance. About the best example of recorded grand piano sound I've heard from a regular red book CD in quite a long time. Highly recommended. Buy now if you can."

A Perfect Introduction to Freddy Kempf and Franz Liszt

Peter L. Jaeger | London, UK | 06/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you don't know Freddy or Franz yet, buy this now! This CD changed me into a fanatical follower of both. I am not a pianist but I find these etudes fascinating and ingenious. My wife, the pianist, doesn't understand why I like listening to etudes, but in fact I find these 12 pieces much more musically engaging than Liszt's "real" music. After listening to this disk for a few weeks I went out and bought or borrowed every performance of these etudes that I could find. Leslie Howard's are lovely too but Freddy Kempf is the best. And by the way, Freddy is a joy to see on stage so make sure to catch him whenever you can."