Search - Liszt, Boris Berezovsky :: Liszt: Transcendental Studies

Berezovsky does it again

Mauro Guzzo Decca | São Paulo, Brazil. | 12/23/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I know a review must be short and to the point unless the reviewer wants the reader to go through an ordeal. So, I'll try very hard to be brief.



Let's begin with the sound quality: it's good. Not Hyperion-like quality, though Hyperion makes its mistakes too, but good enough and the sound of the piano is very well recorded throughout the whole dynamic range of the pieces. The high-pitched notes sound especially good and are in no way a threat to your ear-drum.



I'll not talk about Berezovsky in abstract - I did that elsewhere. I'll talk about a piece people probably would expect one to comment on: chasse-niege. I'll not go through the whole hog lest this review doesn't become as off-putting as some I have done in the past. I expect my good friends who still appreciate this kind of music just like me do the rest of the job.



Chasse-niege is a treasure from the first chords to the end. At the very beginning of the piece, the player needs to alternate briskly between low-pitched notes which are an ambush for any pianist as it's bound to drag the player into a blurried zone of disjointed tunes. It's damn hard to make each one of them sound as clear and full as they sound on this cd. Berezovsky does it: the low-pitched ballast on which the melody is slowly developed is clear and very well executed. It does remember the beginning of Schumann's Fantasy in C in some ways, and I'm wondering if Berezovsky has already - or is considering to - include more Schumann's compositions into his already wide repertoire. The melody is played beautifully without hurry, with moderate use of ornamentation and it never quite resolves its tension: it's as if Liszt were talking, his lips moving, but no one could listen to him - that's what the melody sounds like, a very moving but also at the same time very stiffled expression of melancholy. There's no anger in his account as compared to many other renditions of the piece. No fury, no anger: the powerful chords which alternate with the delicate melodic contour sound more like expressions of impotence. The reverberating choral-like crescendo right before the piece conclusion left me outright horrent: it's brilliant.



Personally, I liked the whole cd. The pieces most brilliantly executed, at least to my taste, are chasse-niege and Wilde Jagd: Wilde Jagd is just jaw-dropping in Berezovsky's hands. It's really very much what the title describes: it's frenzied and full of an anger experienced and satisfied with joy and relief. That the piece is done in about 4:35-4:40 minutes is also a good sign, not in itself, of course, but if you do like this piece, you can hint at Berezovsky's try to give it a balanced approach without the Nojima-Kissin-like hastiness which makes me so mad, as much as I like both pianists. Nojima's Ravel is wonderful and Kissin, well, no comment. People didn't like my critical review of Kissin's most recent cd covering some of the more appealing and famous Chopin's repertoire.



Why am I praising this cd if Berezovsky isn't covering any new ground here? Because, although these pieces have already been wonderfully played and recorded, Berezovsky does add to our understanding of Liszt - especially in chasse-niege, he's quite original and reveals that emotional tension I described which is often passed over, maybe because, after all, it was not Liszt's point. But, if it was Berezovsky's point, it was a very good one and suited the piece squarely.



Thanks for bearing with me.





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