Search - Yu Kosuge :: Liszt: Etudes [Limited Edition] [Japan]

Best interpretation of the 12 Liszt etudes I know

Michael Schuster | Saratoga, CA, United States | 01/15/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is by far the best interpretation that I know of the 12 Liszt etudes and I own quite a few versions of them. Kosuge Yu plays them at an unbelievable speed, sensitivity and and best of all rhythm which shows Liszt at his best I believe. Congratulations to her and her teachers. Compared to for example Claudio Arrau she shows that she has no problems with the necessary speed to keep the rhythm in Etude No.1, 3, 7 and others -- other interpretations are much worse here. Listening to the recording in detail shows that sometimes her hands are too small to play some of the parts as they are written in the music (Paysage for example) which she has changed accordingly into arpeggios -- this makes this recording even more of a sensation to me. The recording quality and the sound of the piano is also excellent. I have listened to this CD probably 100 times or more because it is so great (possibly my all time favorite!) -- a shame that the original version of this CD is only for sale in Europe and Japan at the time of writing. Now that we have a recording of the final version of the 12 etudes I can only encourage her to record a version of the first and second version that Liszt wrote before the finals...

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