Liszt : oeuvres pour piano

Description

Vincent Larderet is a Steinway artist who has performed solo recitals in many of the most prestigious piano festivals and concert halls in the world. He has played chamber music with musicians such as Sol Gabetta, Emmanuelle Bertrand and Michel Dalberto, and this disc marks his debut on Piano Classics. His previous albums explored the teeming universe of Impressionism and late Romanticism, making the intoxicating world of late Liszt a logical next step. Pieces on the border of silence and tonality, such as Nuages gris and Unstern!, demand a finesse of touch and a richness of color at least as great as the great cycles of Debussy and Ravel that Larderet has often performed in public. In his own introduction, the pianist explains that the aim of this album is to capture the incomparable palette of emotions that runs through Liszt's protean piano works. His genius in creating the genre of program music, almost ex nihilo (with the help of Beethoven and Berlioz), is celebrated by the inclusion of the 1849 Dante Sonata, which condenses and transfigures the narrative arc of the entire Divine Comedy into just 17 minutes. Four years later, the Second Ballade tells a gothic story of a nocturnal ride, perhaps also evoking the ancient Greek myth of Hero and Leander, where the hero drowns trying to swim across the Hellespont to reach his beloved. The pianist is then called upon to produce literally wave after wave of sound from his instrument, in a masterpiece of tone painting. The Funérailles heralds the austere and enigmatic words of his final period, condensing his rich harmonies and superimposed voices to leave an ever more imposing musical canvas, imbuing every note with meaning and the overwhelming presence of mortality. The "insomniac" vision of Schlaflos! seems to come from another world. Larderet concludes his unique love letter to Liszt with En rêve, which depicts a more consoling dreamscape.