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LISZT: The Transcendentals: Twelve Etudes; Funerailles, October 1849; Valse Oubliee No. 1 in f-sharp minor – Barbara Nissman, p. – Three Oranges

by Audiophile Audition | Mar 4, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

Barbara Nissman gives us a dynamic and emotionally aggressive Liszt, virtuosic and poetic.

 LISZT: The Transcendentals: Twelve Etudes; Funerailles, October 1849; Valse Oubliee No. 1 in f-sharp minor – Barbara Nissman, piano – Three Oranges Recordings 3OR-22, 75:18 (1/31/17) [www.threeorangesrecordings.com] ****: Barbara Nissman,long associated with the music of Franz Liszt, turns (rec. 1-3 August 2013) to his most imposing legacy, his 12 Transcendental Etudes (1852 edition), recast in more accessible form by the composer from his 1837 version, which Berlioz had deemed impossible for any other artist to realize. Schumann had been only slightly more optimistic, calling them “studies in storm and dread for, at the most, ten or twelve players in the world.” Much in the spirit of the Chopin Preludes, which follow the circle of fifths, the Liszt Etudes follow a pattern of descending thirds, starting in C Major and working their way to b-flat minor. In the course of the progression – or spiritual journey – Liszt consolidates his consummate keyboard technique while paying homage to his arsenal of Romantic rhetoric and heroic gestures, his capacity to embrace ecstasies of emotional extremes that look to Dante as their analogy in imaginative expression. Nissman opens with two preliminary […]