LISZT
Mephisto Waltzes etc
CYPRIEN
KATSARIS, Piano
Apex
2564 67410-2 / ****1/2
The piano music of Franz Liszt
(1811-1886) has been celebrated for its Janus-like qualities. Juxtaposing the
diabolical with the sacred in music paralleled his personal life of
sinner-turned-penitent, a self-styled “pop star” virtuoso in his youth who
spent his later years as an Abbe and sage.
This recording by French-Cypriot
pianist Cyprien Katsaris eloquently illustrates these diametrically opposed
views, opening with the sublime Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude (Blessing of
God in Solitude), where the spiritually serene and rapturous come together
as never before.
Then follows the four Mephisto Waltzes, of which the First is
the most often performed. Here the “evil” interval of the tritone (once
referred to as “diabolus in musicus”
and banned by the Vatican) is flaunted with wild abandon in a series of
unbridled and frenzied dances.
The rarely-heard Mephisto Polka and near-atonal Bagatelle
Sans Tonalite are inserted as sinister miniatures, but the palate is
cleansed with the Variations on Weinen,
Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, a grand treatise on the passacaglia form which
concludes with the reassuring strains of a Bach chorale. Katsaris' pianistic
journey from Hades to Paradise is absorbing and exhausting, and one to be
savoured.
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