Liszt: Années de pélerinage; Première année - Suisse & Légende 2 - Orfeo: C944182I - CD + DVD Video or download

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Piemontesi’s pianism can hold its own alongside anyone’s in terms of absolute technical facility. He also has a special affinity with the lyrical directness in Liszt’s idiom…You can’t really... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2018, 3 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 15th Jun 2018
Catalogue No: C944182I
Label: Orfeo
Length: 55 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

8th June 2018
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2018
The Times Records of the Year

2018

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Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, 1ère année, Suisse (9 pieces), S. 160

Work length47:00

$11.00

$14.25

$19.25

Francesco Piemontesi (piano)
Recorded: January 2017
Recording Venue: Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, Switzerland

No. 1, Chapelle de Guillaume Tell

Track length5:39

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 2, Au lac de Wallenstadt

Track length3:24

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 3, Pastorale

Track length1:29

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 4, Au bord d'une source

Track length3:48

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 5, Orage

Track length4:12

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 6, Vallée d'Obermann

Track length12:42

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

No. 7, Eglogue

Track length3:13

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

No. 8, Le mal du pays

Track length5:55

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No. 9, Les cloches de Genève

Track length6:38

$1.00

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$1.75

Excerpt, Liszt: Legendes (2) for piano, S. 175

Work length8:13

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

Francesco Piemontesi (piano)
Recorded: January 2017
Recording Venue: Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, Switzerland

No. 2, St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots

Track length8:13

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

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Interview, Francesco Piemontesi on Liszt

20th June 2018

The pianist talks to David about the first instalment of Années de pélerinage, which was our Recording of the Week a fortnight ago.

Recording of the Week, Francesco Piemontesi performs piano music by Franz Liszt

8th June 2018

James listens to a turbulent account of the Première année in Liszt's piano cycle Années de pèlerinage from Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi.

There is arguably no other piano work that displays the same abundance and diversity of overall purpose, as well as profound expression, and that demands such a high degree of skill from the performer than this wide-ranging piano cycle from the high Romantic era. At the same time, it is almost shocking how very few recordings there are (hardly any, that is to say, not to mention a dearth of concert performances), above all by the great pianists of recent years. The reason for this must surely be the spiritual demands on the artist's powers of imagination, required to imbue the keys of the instrument with the bold and exciting depictions of the most diverse emotional landscapes. At this time, Liszt had reached the pinnacle of his compositional imaginative powers when it came to composing piano works, and as the Liszt connoisseur Alfred Brendel once said, his music has the capacity to mercilessly reveal the weaknesses of its interpreters, not just from the point of view of technique, but with regard to the authenticity of expression. There can be no such talk of weaknesses in the case of the young, yet widely and repeatedly acclaimed Francesco Piemontesi. Orfeo is delighted to release, as his first recording, the first volume of the cycle. The booklet notes, written in the form of a stimulating essay by the respected pianist, musicologist and critic Piero Rattalino, who is acknowledged among music lovers for his profound experience and originality, can be seen as a fine compliment to the artist. The second accolade is the twinning of the audio recording with a DVD featuring a documentary by none other than the legendary Bruno Monsaingeon, who has produced numerous film portraits that have made a huge contribution to music performance history, not least several about Glenn Gould and Sviatoslav Richter.

Reviews

August 2018

Piemontesi’s pianism can hold its own alongside anyone’s in terms of absolute technical facility. He also has a special affinity with the lyrical directness in Liszt’s idiom…You can’t really play ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’ more straightforwardly than here; yet the result has a haunting loveliness…If Piemontesi’s way with the music’s poetry is special, he is less impressive with its firepower.

September 2018

Piemontesi makes an exultant hymn of the opening ‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’, a noble tribute to Switzerland’s legendary hero; and his ‘Au Lac de Wallenstadt’ makes you recall Liszt’s mistress of the moment, Marie d’Agoult, as she heard ‘a melancholy harmony imitative of the sigh of waves and the cadence of oars’. He reminds you that ‘Pastorale’ is a playful tribute to the finale of Beethoven’s Pastoral Sonata, while few could equal Piemontesi’s octave blaze in ‘Orage’, an alpine, elemental rage with a vengeance. Most of all he rises to the immense challenge of ‘Valle d’Obermann with a deep and abiding sense of Byronic gloom, an awe and melancholy induced by a pantheistic sense of the wonders of nature. After such magnificence ‘Eclogue’ comes like balm, and finally in ‘Les cloches de Genève’, the bells ring out in defiance of Calvanist Geneva’s frown on Liszt and Marie d’Agoult’s scandalous and open relationship in their midst.

8th June 2018

It is in movements such as 'Orage' where Piemontesi's virtuosity is on full display...Even within this maelstrom of tempest-tossed chords, he takes care to observe all the markings...This is extremely invigorating to listen to; I can’t think of many other recordings that approach this level of turbulent frenzy…[in Vallée d'Obermann] the way that Piemontesi shifts between torrid virtuosity and a delicately expressive touch is most impressive.

8th July 2018

Piemontesi is unfazed by the technical demands and delights in the pictorial aspects of Liszt’s wanderings through his homeland. The lilting sixths of Pastorale recall the composer’s love of Italian bel canto, while Piemontesi “sings” the melodies of the Vallée d’Obermann with beguiling sensibility and revels in the sunny tintinnabulation of Les Cloches de Genève.

Classical Ear October 2018

Here is a pianist who combines virtuosity with refined thinking… Piemontesi never vulgarizes the music or plays to the gallery He is a musician through and through.

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Liszt: Années de pélerinage; Première année - Suisse & Légende 2

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Interview, Francesco Piemontesi on Liszt

Recording of the Week, Francesco Piemontesi performs piano music by Franz Liszt

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