Search - Franz Liszt, Leslie Howard :: Liszt: The Late Pieces

Liszt looks to the future

09/17/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Liszt "hurled his lance further into the future than Wagner," and this CD shows just how far. Bartok said Liszt was the first modernist in music. Need I say more? Again, fabulous playing by Howard."

GREAT MUSIC, poor interpretation

Franz Liszt | 10/10/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Well, well... a Great Music indeed, extremely tragic and elegiac but... what a hurried and superficial interpretation by Mr.Howard! "Nuages gris" (I LOVE Marc-André Hamelin's one!) is very simple to play but paradoxically more difficult than "Mephisto-Valzer". It's not a matter of technical difficulties of course, but more "artistic" one. Howard simply doesn't know to sink in the deep darkness of Liszt late, gloomy masterpieces. I can't hear distress or hopless in that interpretation, it's just a plain reading, with almost no soul.



Looking at the duration of the present CD (79:41 min) I could think that such hurry is only to make 1 CD instead of 2. What a pity...



Mister Howard's incredible task (and courage) is really admirable (musicological one is astonishing!), but Liszt is not only supersonic octaves!

"

Liszt's Later Piano Works

Amy | 09/08/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In Liszt's later years his compositional style became less virtuosic and became more experimental harmonically. His experiments in harmony and amazing ability to draw strange sounds from the piano confirms that Liszt was one of the true revolutionaries in music. It is said that as Liszt got older he became consumed by overwhelming sadness and that he had to put these feelings to music. A number of Liszt's later piano works have a profound grim mood. Some of these have religious connotations, while others reflect a feeling ranging from apathy and depression. For example, one of the last Harmonies Religieuses contaning the rarely played Resignazione. This side of Liszt gains more influence during the later years of his life. During this period his piano compositions combine a stark style with harmonical innovations. Most of Liszt's older pieces are of an individual kind, rather than belonging to any form of collection. These include the violent Unstern! which is an experimental and unique work. The song is suppose to give an impression of misfortune or disaster. The oddly somber Nuages gris meaning Grey Clouds which is suppose to evoke a feeling of hoplessness. My favorite pieces on this cd are La lugubre gondola 1 & 2 Liszt wrote inspired by a Venetian gondola funeral that Liszt wrote because of a premontion he had of Wagner's death. It is said that Wagner died 6 weeks later. Then there is the works Liszt called his forgotten pieces such as the beautifully simplistic Romance Oubliee. This is an amazing cd of rarely heard piano works of Liszt and I feel that Liszt's later works are his most passionate and heart felt of all the pieces he ever composed."