Liszt Concerti

[arensky]

Love 'em or hate 'em? Sound off...


Favorite recording, hated recordings....

[Bouter Boogie]

I´d go for the 1st one then..

[Etude]

My favourite is the second. 

[maxy]

I love both.

Richter owns Liszt 2.
Liszt 1 has too many great contenders to choose from.

[arensky]

OK folks here I go....

My favorite is the 1st, even though that's a tough choice...I guess it just hangs together better, but I love the French Horn solo in the 2sd with the piano pasagework as accompaniment; it's like you died and went to heaven, so beautiful...

For me Richter owns them both, I've never heard either played better, and most importantly like music, not like tacky display stuff. Liszt is a much abused long suffering composer.

Evryone should hear the recordings of both Concerti from 1938 by Emil von Sauer, Liszt's student and one of the great pianists of 70-100 years ago. A lot of what he does is strange to our ears, but he's closer to the tradition than we are. A lot of it is sloppy, but he was 78 years old at the time. And a lot of it is really good... the Orchestra really stinks, though. 


In one of David Dubal's Horowitz books, he brags about talking Horowitz out of recording the Liszt #1 because he's too old, and the Eb is a young man's piece; what we lost there; so what if he was too old, he was (IMO) the greatest Liszt pianist of the 20th century, maybe of all time. Hope Dubal's happy about that...

[prometheus]

Isn't von Sauer also a composer himself? Or is that another guy? Probably is the same guy.

I think I would go for No.1 also. Sure, the No.2 beats No.1 in its strongest moments. But overal No.1 is just very well composed.

[arensky]

Sauer was a composer,  it was mostly salon music from what I can tell, but it's very good; If  I ever have lots of spare time on my hands and have learned and performed all the "important" pieces I care about I would like to learn his "Concert Polka" and "Aspenlaube". His complete recordings were put out by Hyperion, I think, and are already out of print(***! I missed it..) . He also edited Liszt's music, the Dover editions of Liszt that many of us use are reprints of these editions(not Annees de Pelerinage, that's Soviet, or at least mine is: Dover was reprinting quite a few Soviet editions about 8 years ago, but there's been legal trouble or something, don't know the specifics; does anyone? Inquiring mind would like to know... )

You might also be thinking of Eugen d'Albert, who wrote many operas including "Tiefland" and "Die Toten Augen", which are still done very occasionally; he made quite a few recordings, of Liszt and Brahms and Chopin and his own music as well; his recording of Liszt's "Au bord d'une source" is stunning, I think, even though he has a lapse and improvises the ending; or maybe he ran out out of  time, it was the olden days.

There is detailed (though often opinionated)information about both these cats in Harold C. Schonberg's "The Great Pianists" , still the best book on the subject.

[mlsmithz]

No.1, by quite a wide margin.  One of my favourite passages in all of Liszt is the build-up into the finale.  Between the glorious return to the home key of E-flat, the tympani beating the rhythm of the opening bars of the entire concerto, and the gradual full orchestral crescendo (especially the entrance of the brass section), everything seems to come together marvellously. (Well, at least for me it does.) And similarly for the gradual crescendo and accelerando in the final minute.

As for recordings, I have Krystian Zimerman's recording of both concerti and the Totentanz with Ozawa and the Boston SO.  I've listened to it so many times that it's difficult for me to imagine these pieces performed any other way (one of the perils of listening to the same recording too often).

[brewtality]

I don't much like either of them, they're a bit short for my liking. Of the two, I prefer the first, played by Claudio Arrau. I don't like anyone else's playing of this piece.

[viking]

Richter does definately own the 2nd concerto.  My favorite is probably the 1st, but because I play the 2nd one so much I get semi-sick of it.  They are both marvellous concertos.  As for composition, im not sure which one is better composed.  The 1st one ties together more, but it's shorter and really not that musically diverse.  However, the 2nd is quite deep and has many contrasting sections.  They are both excellent competition pieces.  Nice and short so the judges dont sleep, but big enough to show a full interpretation and command of technique.
SAM

[Waldszenen]

I love both, but I have to choose No. 1 because its finale is more triumphant, in my opinion.

[apion]

As between 1 and 2, I choose 1.  However, Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra in d minor eclipses them both.

[thierry13]

As between 1 and 2, I choose 1.  However, Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra in d minor eclipses them both.

 

[moose_opus_28]

1 is so much better than the others it's not even funny.  2 is just too cheesy.  It's pointless.  1 makes me happy to be alive.  And 1 has a lot of good recordings...Richter, Agerich, Zimmerman....

[danyal]

Zimerman!!! Incredible!

As for recordings, I have Krystian Zimerman's recording of both concerti and the Totentanz with Ozawa and the Boston SO.  I've listened to it so many times that it's difficult for me to imagine these pieces performed any other way (one of the perils of listening to the same recording too often).

Very true.

For me, the 1st is more of a show-off "look what I can do" piece. Something young pianists always seem to want to play. Dont get me wrong, it is incredible and ingenious, and I love dearly, but the 2nd is a lot more mature, with more depth and wisdom.

The Totentanz just completely takes 1st prize for me. There is not one single section (imo) that is not incredible. It's 10 mins of utter breathtaking, captivating soul. Or the way Krystian Zimerman plays it anyway. Its amazing though.

[pseudopianist]

The first one but I wouldn't mind exchanging the 2nd movement from that one with the one from the 2nd (Allegro Moderato I believe)

[stevie]

totentanz is one of the most AWESOME pieces ever written.

im gonna request this on classic FM for them to play on the 'relaxing classics' program

relax...with classic FM.....BANG BANG BANG BANG!

[lisztwasgod]

My favorite is Liszt's First. I am just partial to the accompaniment of the piano more than in the second one.

My favorite recording of the Liszt One---probably one of the most renowned---would be that of Claudio Arrau and the Philadelphia Philharmonic under Eugenen Ormandy...absolutely brilliant

[Waldszenen]

Fark, Arrau is bloody brilliant for the Liszt PCs, but no one compares to Richter IMO.

[arensky]

Arrau is great (and was even better in person) but I concur with Waldszenen