{"id":1975,"date":"2019-03-29T15:41:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gianlucaluisi.com\/en\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=1975"},"modified":"2019-03-29T16:15:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T15:15:14","slug":"liszt-complete-piano-music-vol-30","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/www.gianlucaluisi.com\/en\/luisi\/liszt-complete-piano-music-vol-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 30<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Gianluca Luisi is an excellent choice in these early Romantic piano arrangements\u00a0radiant with Italian sunshine.<\/p>\n

\u201c The character of instrumental music… lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.\u201d Liszt<\/p>\n

Now standing at volume 30 this continuing Naxos series maintains an impressive level of consistency with this disc featuring arrangements of Italian opera composers. Across the series Naxos have utilised the talents of several soloists the majority of whom were new names to me. On this volume the soloist is also unfamiliar but the label\u2019s scouts are clearly expert at talent spotting as Italian-born pianist Gianluca Luisi performs with assurance and considerable brio.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year I was dazzled by the playing of the Kanazawa-Admony Piano Duo in volume 29 in the series comprising two-piano transcriptions of four of Liszt\u2019s symphonic poems on Naxos 8.570736. In 2008 I especially enjoyed volume 28 in the series which was Liszt\u2019s two piano transcription of Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 9 . Previously, I had selected two discs from this series as my \u2018 2007 Records of the Year\u2019: volume 24 played by Giuseppe Andaloro on 8.557814 and volume 25 played by Alexandre Dossin on 8.557904.<\/p>\n

Before it was possible to reproduce performances electronically the majority of music-lovers only had access to the popular orchestral and operatic scores of the day in pared-down arrangements for performance in the drawing room or salon. Liszt was the undisputed master of the \u2018art of the transcription\u2019, making numerous piano arrangements of the music of mainly popular contemporary composers. These he played in his own recitals.<\/p>\n

Completed in 1838 the Soir\u00e9es italiennes, S411 are free piano arrangements known as six amusements based on motifs from a collection of songs by Saverio Mercadante, an admired Neapolitan composer, principally of operas. It seems that Liszt dedicated the score to the Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria. The set of six Soir\u00e9es italiennes are genuinely elegant, attractive and undemanding piano pieces that in the hands of Gianluca Luisi amuse and delight. They vary splendidly from the relaxed elegance of La primavera (track 1) to the action-packed entertainment of the dance-infused Galop (track 2) to the brash arrogance of the drinking song Il brindisi (track 5). It\u2019s a shame that Mercadante the composer of the original themes is not acknowledged in the titles to this release.<\/p>\n

Liszt first heard Paganini perform in 1832 at a Paris recital. This event was to inspire the young Liszt to embark on a career as a touring virtuoso. It was in 1838 that Liszt prepared the \u00c9tudes d\u2019ex\u00e9cution transcendante d\u2019apr\u00e8s Paganini, S140 a set of six challenging studies based on themes from Paganini\u2019s 24 Caprices for solo violin and other works. In 1840 the set was published and later revised and republished in 1851. Of the three \u00c9tudes on this disc the best known by far is the sixth based on Paganini\u2019s famous and oft-transcribed Caprice No. 24 in A minor. I like the way Luisi traverses the complex and virtuosic demands of the moody \u00c9tude No.1. A study in arpeggios the \u00c9tude No.4 is akin to a perpetuum mobile and the celebrated \u00c9tude No.6 is a delightful yet serious display piece with that killer melody.
\nFrom 1824 the Impromptu brillant sur des th\u00e8mes de Rossini et Spontini, S150 is an early work from the year of Liszt\u2019s Paris debut and bears a dedication to Countess Eug\u00e9nie de Noirberne. The score includes themes from Rossini\u2019s operas La donna del lago and Armida, and Gaspare Spontini\u2019s opera Olimpie and Fernand Cortez. A marvellous piece, the Impromptu is high on melody and broad in entertainment value. Possibly the themes are a touch lacking in variety which is probably the reason the score is not played more often in piano recitals.<\/p>\n

Liszt knew the Parisian-based Gioachino Rossini and prepared several fantasias on themes from his operas. Dating from around 1824 Liszt\u2019s Sept variations sur un th\u00e8me de Rossini, S149 uses themes from Rossini\u2019s opera Ermione. Liszt\u2019s score is dedicated to Madame Panckoucke who was well connected and from an eminent publishing family. Luisi is fresh and exhilarating in the agreeable and dazzling virtuosic Sept variations.<\/p>\n

Splendidly performed and recorded in Vienna this volume in the continuing series shows no sign of flagging. Luisi is an excellent choice in these undemanding early Romantic piano arrangements so radiant with Italian sunshine.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>
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This Italian-flavored collection gathers up some of Liszt\u2019s more obscure piano works\u00a0leavened, oddly, by three chestnuts drawn from the Paganini Etudes. The Impromptu and the Variations, both from 1824, are the products of a precocious and exuberant teenager who, though still confined by the conventions of the day, nonetheless manages to keep our attention by using his cage as a jungle gym on which to perform the brilliant, if sometimes foursquare, acrobatic feats that helped secure his reputation as a performing wunderkind; the slightly later Soir\u00e9es italiennes (1838), based on songs by Mercadante, intermittently shows a more supple imagination, a freer approach to the instrument, and a greater resistance to the tyranny of the barline. None of these rarities in any way suggest the iconoclastic genius to come\u2014but all three provide flashes of pleasure.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re especially effective in the hands of Gianluca Luisi. These are, at their best, sweetly refined performances notable for their gentle ardor: their silken lines, their pastel colors, their flexible rubato, and their careful attention to harmonic nuance. Not that Luisi doesn\u2019t have a solid technique. There\u2019s plenty of splash, for instance, in the more bravura moments in the Variations; the first of the Paganini Etudes has a fine melodramatic swagger; and the fourth is tossed off with an enviably debonair legerdemain. But on the whole, the less aggressive music (especially in the Soir\u00e9es) makes the most lasting impact; in some of the more outgoing music \u2014 say, the Galop in Soir\u00e9es or the sixth of the Paganini Etudes \u2014 Luisi\u2019s playing can thicken.<\/p>\n

Keith Anderson\u2019s notes are good; Naxos\u2019s sound is slightly gray and lacking in presence. All in all, if you have a weakness for even the lower rungs of 19th-century piano music and you don\u2019t already have the Leslie Howard recordings (which trade in some spontaneity for a tighter focus), this disc is warmly recommended.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Peter J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare – August 2010<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>
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Liszt\u2019s reputation as a composer has always been a controversial and phlegmatic one,\u00a0veering as he did between what seems to some as cheap, empty paraphrases of operatic music, superfluous arrangements for keyboard of the Beethoven symphonies, and more \u201cserious\u201d works that nevertheless also contain elements of flashiness. Certainly, one seldom encounters a pianist who makes his or her living playing the more culturally elite repertoire of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert playing Liszt, although Dinu Lipatti was famous for his performances of Liszt\u2019s piano concertos (inhabitants of his more serious wing), but Gianluca Luisi plays these pieces with so much joy, as well as so much musical integrity, that it\u2019s nearly impossible to brush them off as mere entertainment. Indeed, it may be that it is exactly because Luisi has spent so many years playing more substantive and less showy repertoire that these performances work so well. Certainly the crystalline tone of his B\u00f6sendorfer has a lot to do with hearing all the structural clarity in these works, but Luisi\u2019s incredibly crisp articulation and (as I said) somewhat more serious mein bring the listener\u2019s focus to the quality of the music without making an undue fuss over its technical difficulty. To give but two examples: The final Bolero of the Soir\u00e9es italiennes has all the swagger one might wish in it, yet at the same time Liszt\u2019s command of chordal richness and exuberant use of power shine through, while in the Paganini \u00c9tude No. 4, Luisi flies over the keyboard with elfin grace, always drawing the listener inward but never, ever in a way that brags of his digital dexterity. In the Seven Variations on a Theme of Rossini, Luisi finally lets his bravado out of the bottle, so to speak. The performance is so effervescent, so bubbling over with joy and wit, that at the end you almost feel like jumping out of your seat and applauding. It\u2019s that good.<\/p>\n

My only question is, since this disc is Vol. 30 in the complete piano music of Liszt, Luisi was only asked (or allowed, I\u2019m not sure which) to record three of the six Paganini etudes. Surely this means that someone else is going to record Nos. 2, 3, and 5\u2014perhaps Luisi himself, perhaps another pianist. The sound quality is fantastic. These are the kinds of performances that lift ostensibly shallow, flashy pieces up and make true art of them. As several jazz pianists said of the great Art Tatum, there\u2019s nothing in these performances that will scare you away unless you also happen to be a pianist.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Lynn Ren\u00e9 Bayley, Fanfare – August 2010<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>
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Dita d\u2019acciaio e tocco incisivo, Gianluca Luisi dispone di un grande volume di suono e offre un fraseggio scolpito con gesti robusti sulla tastiera del suo B\u00f6sendorfer Imperial, pianoforte che rappresenta sempre una gioia per le orecchie. Sotto questo aspetto i lisztiani tre Grandi Studi da Paganini affrontati nel primo dei due CD pubblicati dalla Naxos sono un\u2019interpretazione esemplare, anche in virt\u00f9 della buona qualit\u00e0 tecnica della registrazione. Certo, Luisi non \u00e8 un virtuoso-monstre come Hamelin o come il Carlo Grante di qualche anno fa, per\u00f2 i suoi Studi da Paganini temono pochi confronti.<\/p>\n

Non si pu\u00f2 dire lo stesso delle pi\u00f9 fragili Soir\u00e9es italiennes, che richiedono agli interpreti una leggerezza salottiera, una fantasia, una \u00ab souplesse \u00bb di fraseggio e di tocco estranee al pianismo di Luisi. Funzionano, tra le Soir\u00e9es, quelle pi\u00f9 spiccatamente virtuosistiche, come la Serenata del marinaio, il Brindisi e soprattutto la Zingarella spagnola, risolta tutta nel segno di una brillantezza scintillante anche se poco raffinata per quanto riguarda le sfumature timbriche e dinamiche. Lo stesso si pu\u00f2 dire per i due pezzi da concerto su temi di Rossini composti nel 1824 da un Liszt poco pi\u00f9 che dodicenne ai tempi del suo esordio a Parigi: qui la brillantezza non basta, quando non sia sorretta da un delicato lirismo, gi\u00e0 percorso da fremiti romantici (soprattutto per l\u2019Impromptu, dove Liszt riprende il Rossini de La donna del lago e non il Rossini del Barbiere!).<\/p>\n

Altro \u00e8 il discorso da fare per l\u2019interessante CD cameristico dedicato alla figura del tedesco Ludwig Thuille (1861\u20131907), compositore, pianista e didatta amico di Richard Strauss, che rappresenta una bella scoperta discografica, anche se a dire il vero il Sestetto op. 6 per pianoforte e fiati ha sempre goduto di una certa notoriet\u00e0. Questo Sestetto potrebbe essere ascritto tranquillamente alla penna di Brahms per la qualit\u00e0 dell\u2019invenzione tematica in relazione al timbro dei singoli strumenti, sfruttati in tutte le loro peculiarit\u00e0. Si veda come il corno trovi in ogni situazione un ruolo a lui perfettamente congeniale, fin dalle prime battute dell\u2019Allegro moderato d\u2019apertura. Anche il timbro del pianoforte si amalgama bene con quello dei fiati, senza dubbio in virt\u00f9 dell\u2019ottima qualit\u00e0 della scrittura di Thuille, ma anche grazie alle peculiarit\u00e0 timbriche del B\u00f6sendorfer Imperial. Lo stesso avviene nel Quintetto op. 20, dove \u00e8 spesso il pianoforte a sostenere gli archi, in particolare nel commuovente Adagio assai sostenuto, anche se il Quartetto Gigli non ci sembra esibire la stessa compattezza sonora del Quintetto Chantily.<\/p>\n

In veste di camerista Gianluca Luisi rivela un controllo, un\u2019eleganza ed un\u2019attenzione agli equilibri dell\u2019insieme insospettabili per un virtuoso e che forse si devono alla sua costante pratica della musica di Bach. E la circospezione con cui tratteggia i sinistri cromatismi nel citato Adagio del Quintetto, cromatismi che sembrano venire dal Wagner del Tristan, dal Brahms dei Preludi-Corali per organo se non addirittura\u2014in anticipo di quasi mezzo secolo!\u2014dal Richard Strauss degli anni quaranta del Novecento, d\u00e0 tutta la misura della sua sensibilit\u00e0 di interprete.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Luca Segalla, Musica – December 2009<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>
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It must have been a constant battle for Franz Liszt to titillate his audiences with works of ever increasing technical bravura,\u00a0often resorting to paraphrases to maintain the unending flow. He turned to Mercadante to provide the themes for the six sections that form the Soirees italiennes, the attractive melodies mixing lyric passages with moments of hair-raising difficulty.<\/p>\n

Il galop and Il brindisi stand beside the charm of Il pastore Svizzero (The Swiss shepherd), and a brilliant Bolero brings it to a conclusion. It was seeing the great violin virtuoso, Paganini, that drove the seventeen year old Liszt to seek the same level of perfection in his piano playing. As a tribute he wrote his Etudes d\u2019execution transcendante d\u2019apres Paganini as a set of six studies that were published in 1840, but enlarged and somewhat simplified for the version we normally hear and published in 1851. This disc includes three of those that were changed in the enlarged score, the Sixth being the study on Paganini\u2019s famous Capriccio No. 24.<\/p>\n

He was only thirteen when he completed the Impromptu brillant sur des themes de Rossini et Spontini, the themes coming from two operas by each composer that are unknown today. He must have been a brilliant prodigy to play such a score. The release ends with Sept variations sur un theme de Rossini composed the same year and using music from the opera, Ermione.<\/p>\n

The disc is played, appropriately, by an Italian pianist, Gianluca Luisi, who gives very literal readings that show an affinity with Liszt in brilliant mode, but is at his best in those passages that thrive on affection. Playing a superb Bosendorfer piano, the recorded sound has the required weight and impact.<\/p>\n<\/div>

David Denton, David’s Review Corner – September 2009<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/div>
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