Search - Franz Liszt, Arnaldo Cohen :: Liszt: Sonata in B minor, etc.

Fantastic, unwavering drama

George Sand | 11/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is perhaps Cohen's best disc to date. His drama and virtuosity are unparalleled, and you will certainly find that the interpretation of the pieces herein are clearly a cut above that of some of his predecessors such as Horowitz and Argerich.



Suffice it to say that it has been chosen Gramophone's "Editor's Choice":



GRAMOPHONE

December 2004



BIS Cd-1253

Arnaldo Cohen

Liszt - Funerailles, Spanish Rhapsody, Vallée D'Oberman, Sonata in B minor



This is Liszt-playing on a grand scale, putting Cohen among the greats



By Jeremy Nicholas



With so many piano recitals by the talented and the also-ran finding their

way on to the market these days, this disc comes as a relief and delight.



Arnaldo Cohen's playing blazes with the risk-taking, spontaneity and

urgency of a live concert.



His Funérailles is a truly great performance, perfectly structured, a real

sense of angry desolation, and the central 'cavalry charge' emerging more

logically from its context than I can recall having heard.



In the Rhapsody, Cohen provides the requisite bravura thrills but also does

Liszt the honour of eschewing the vapidity which so many bring to it.



Vallée d'Obermann emerges as an inspired dramatic tone poem, to which Cohen

adds the element of white-hot improvisation; he yields little to Horowitz's

famous RCA recording (nla) in colour and temperament.



The Liszt Sonata, Cohen's second recording, mingles narrative and textual

clarity with a musical maturity and heady virtuosity in the Richter class."