CHOPIN / SCHUMANN Études
VALENTINA LISITSA, Piano
Decca 478 7697 / ****1/2
At over 85 minutes playing time, this has to be
the longest single CD in existence. Within it, Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina
Lisitsa packs in Chopin’s 24 Études
(Op.10 & 25) and all of Schumann’s Études
Symphoniques, including the five posthumous variations. The draw of this
Youtube sensation is not her fire-breathing virtuosity but an innate musicality
which elevate Chopin’s digitally most challenging essays beyond the realm of
technical exercises. She nevertheless dispatches in C sharp minor study (Op.10
No.4) in 1’47”, bettering Andrei Gavrilov’s famously manic version by 1 second!
Elsewhere, a poetic sensibility presides, and never a slave to the metronome,
freedom of expression and lyrical beauty are never in short supply, even in the
most arduous numbers.
The Schumann Op.13 set comprises 12 variations
(and five more as an appendix) on a staid descending Andante theme which does not suggest possibilities for development,
but how one is proved wrong by compositional genius. Here a sense of fantasy
takes over, where Lisitsa positively revels in. Listen to how she readily
switches gear from utmost delicacy to reaping a whirlwind, like a Formula One
driver negotiating a treacherous turn, with never a dull moment. One could
easily by exhausted by a surfeit of prestissimo
brilliance, but Lisitsa does not allow one that indulgence. She is too good a
musician to fall into that speed trap. Enjoy and how time flies; that is
relativity at work.
LYAPUNOV Piano Concertos
SHORENA TSINTSABADZE,
Piano
Russian Philharmonic /
Dmitry Yablonsky
Russian nationalist composer Sergey Lyapunov
(1859-1924) is probably unknown to most except pianophiles and keyboard wizards
in the thrall of his Liszt-inspired 12 Transcendental
Etudes. He was a student of Taneyev and Klindworth (pupil of Liszt) and was
close to Balakirev, whose circle of “The Mighty Handful” included Borodin and
Rimsky-Korsakov. Also a collector of Russian folk music, these influences
coloured his music, which is exotic and Oriental in flavour.
His two piano concertos (1890 and 1909) are in
single continuous movements which each play for about 20 minutes, with
recurring themes in the cyclic form much in the style of Liszt. Even the
virtuosic flourishes utilise Lisztian devices and technique for ultimate
bravura. Certain passages from the Second
Concerto are unabashed direct quotations from Liszt’s Second Piano
Concerto.
His Rhapsody
On Ukrainian Themes (1907) was dedicated to Busoni, and modelled on Liszt’s
Hungarian Fantasy and
Rimsky-Korskov’s Piano Concerto, with
clear folk accents and a Cossack dance to finish. Georgian pianist Shorena
Tsintsabadze plays brilliantly and offers much competition to British pianist
Hamish Milne (on Hyperion) who has the better recorded orchestral sound. Naxos ’s budget price may be
the deciding factor, but Russophiles and Lisztomaniacs need not hesitate.
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