Octo_Russ

Liszt - Piano Music [Hough]

Another disc that i haven't heard for some time, i must admit that i'm somewhat perplexed by Liszt's piano music, he's not a favourite Composer of mine, unlike say Chopin, who's so organized, putting his works into sets of 24, or a set of 4 etc, Liszt is all over the place, he's hard to methodically collect, plus Liszt can sound bombastic at times, he's undeniably a virtuoso, but sometimes there's no poetry, or architecture, or even creative invention, it's all lots and lots of bombastic notes.

A really good Liszt recital seems hard to come by, there's so many that are a mis-matched bunch of compositions, and there are so many 'average' compositions of Liszt to choose from, so it's good that Stephen Hough has assembled some very nice works, this compilation / recital gels together, with only six pieces, all major compositions lasting a significant amount of minutes.

Stephen Hough is English, he is now 48, he made this recording quite some time ago in 1987, the booklet cover is great, a very inventive photo [by Hanya Chlala], with Stephen Hough with his back to the piano, arms draped over the keyboard, what's really clever about this shot, is it's taken from a height looking down at the pianist, using some step ladders or something, the track listing on the booklet could of done with being in a darker colour to stand out.

The piece i found the most enlightening, was 'Pensees De Morts' [Thoughts On Death / The Dead], this comes from the larger work 'Harmonies Poetiques Et Religieuse' [Poetic And Religious Harmonies],

Here's Andrea Bonatta playing 'Pensees Des Morts' on YouTube.