Liszt: Vallée d'Obermann (Années de pèlerinage I, S. 160 No. 6) - CD

“the compelling centre of this feast is the playing of the 18-year-old Pascal Roge. Mature, lyrical, symphonic and pianistically profound, his Sonata is a marvel.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2012 *****

“There are so many super-pianists about nowadays that no boy or girl is likely to make the grade without being able to rattle off Liszt's B minor Sonata faultlessly at the age of 18. The point is how well? Pascal Rogé was 18 when he made this record last December: he can not only play this transcendentally difficult sonata, he gives it one of the most intelligent and Sensitive interpretations anybody could hope to hear.” Gramophone Magazine

“He attains a remarkably sustained intensity with some pages [of the ‘Dante’ Sonata] and the whole is extremely well integrated” Gramophone Magazine (Années de Pèlerinage)

“instead of storming classical heights with jejune interpretations, [this recital disc] is content to offer evidence of pianistic virtuosity, musical sensitivity and an interest in music going beyond the reachme-downs of the standard repertoire … The pieces and playing make the record very desirable” Gramophone Magazine (Kars)

“Haefliger is impressive in the fugue [of the Hammerklavier], but his opening movement is rather careful, stressing strength at the expense of sweep and momentum...The subtlety of Haefliger's tonal palette serves him well in the more intimate pieces in the Swiss volume of Liszt's Annees de pelerinage” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ***

“A few fussy tempo adjustments in the Scherzo [of the Beethoven] can be forgiven in light of Haefliger's linear clarity...Liszt's Swiss journey gest off to a fine start as Haefliger takes trouble to give shape and meaning to Chapelle de Guillaume Tell's tremolos and uses his pedalling mastery to convincingly project the composer's request for vibrato...The final two pieces clock in slower than most pianists, yet are expressive and well sustained.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2012

“Lugansky's exceptional command of tremolo figuration really does have Liszt's keyboard figuration shimmering as it should.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 ***

“Once you have settled to Lugansky's sometimes glossy tone, it is hard not to be seduced by the playing of a natural Lisztian, as alive to textual detail as conveying a work's drama and poetry. Look no further than his bravura handling of Vallee d'Oberman, surely on of the composer's most inspired masterpieces, rising to ecstatic heights in the final pages.” Classic FM Magazine, March 2012 *****

“Lugansky's approach is a musicianly, 'contained' and modern reaction to the worst excesses and extravagances of the past. Occasionally cool-headed to the point of detachment, he is clearly intent of celebrating Liszt as above all a great musician rather than a meretricious showman. You will not easily locate a more poetic view of three of the Transcendent Etudes” Gramophone Magazine, February 2012

“The positioning of each piece maximises its unique qualities and expression, meanwhile fulfilling an intrinsic role in the overall succession of vivid impressions. Lugansky's immense palette of colour, dynamics and varities of touch are exploited to the fullest. Studiously avoiding and tendency to overplay, he creates instead thoughtful and poetic interpretations and textures that shimmer rather than dazzle.” International Record Review, February 2012

“Lugansky is a fine – if occasionally cool – interpreter of [Liszt's] work, blending lyricism with panache and just the right sense of daring, so that you're often conscious of huge technical challenges braved, then overcome...Just occasionally – in the Liebestod, and in Petrarch Sonnet 123 – you wish he'd let rip a bit more...A flawed disc, though the best of it is an absolute knockout.” The Guardian, 10th November 2011 ****

“Lugansky favours fantasy over whimsy. Liszt's ticklish arrangement of Paganini's "La Campanella" is the only rhinestone twinkler in a handsome programme. Throughout, there is a feeling of extemporisation, most clearly in the "Transcendent Etude in F minor".” The Independent, 4th December 2011

“There’s intelligent method in this two-disc mega-recital...Disc two ingeniously pairs four works from Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage collections with descriptive pieces by Bartok, Marco Stroppa, Ravel and Messiaen, highlighting poetic, formal, textural and gestural similarities galore. Aimard’s readings are characterised by a clarity that allows detail and shape rightful pre-eminence.” Sunday Times, 16th October 2011

“Bombarded as we are by Liszt recordings in his anniversary year, this is refreshingly different. Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is also a skilled maker of programmes...Since large quantities of Liszt in one sitting can be indigestible, this is an excellent way into the B minor sonata and sections of Années de pèlerinage.” The Observer, 16th October 2011

“Aimard has long established himself as the thinking person’s pianist. His Liszt Project juxtaposes a selection of Liszt’s works with compositions by contemporaries and successors who were inspired by him...It’s a strong idea, sustained by the Frenchman’s fastidious pianism, but it comes across more as a lecture-recital than a satisfying listening experience.” Financial Times, 30th October 2011

“Aimard is a supremely intellectual pianist and his intense, rigorously thought-out playing illuminates the two programmes...Aimard's approach is purposefully cool in order to highlight the structural elements of the piece and while there's some exquisite hushed playing, the thunderous climaxes don't build with quite enough abandon.” Classic FM Magazine, February 2012 ****

“This impressive double album is surely one of the most intelligent recorded contributions to the Liszt Bicentenary of 2011...Nothing in Aimard's performances is done for mere effect: throughout, he projects Liszt with a solidity and refinement of invention. A superb achievement.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 *****

“In the main, the later the Liszt the more impressive Aimard is...he is ideally persuasive that no composer stayed younger in his desire to make something new...Aimard's reading of the B minor Sonata is distinguished - intellectually satisfying, as it should be, as the most intelligent and far-reaching of all post-Beethoven sonatas on a large scale.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011

“It's not just intelligent programme planning...that makes Piemontesi stand out; this is seriosuly classy pianism. Clarity of thought is complemented by clarity of touch, incisive intellect by a good dose of fantasy. The details are a joy...there's space to breathe and to dance...Spacious but clear recording quality enhances the lot.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2011 *****

“The Handel is alluringly played, segueing neatly into the Brahms. Piemontesi gives this a thoughtful, meticulously observed reading but seems inhibited when it comes to exploiting the full resources of the piano...The intimacy and desolation of "Valle d'Obermann" are sensitively characterised but again Piemontesi seems afraid to let go” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“Handel’s B flat major Suite, HWV 34, is incisive and positive, while clarity is not compromised by the wide tonal palette he displays in Brahms’s Handel Variations, Op 24. Bach’s B flat major Partita is articulated elegantly. A fine account of Liszt’s transcription of Bach’s G minor Fantasy and Fugue does its massiveness and thrilling contrapuntal intricacies utter justice.” Sunday Times, 31st July 2011 ****

“There's a real aristocratic sweep to this 27-year-old Swiss pianist's playing; the Handel suite from which Brahms extracted the theme of his Handel Variations is generously expressive...Piemontesi's unaffected Bach playing is recognisably all of a piece with his fundamentally unflamboyant approach to Liszt, which manages to present the rhetorical grandeur of Vallée d'Obermann truthfully, without exaggerating it in any way.” The Guardian, 30th June 2011 ****

“Piemontesi combines communicative panache with remarkable insight. He prefaces a virile, sensitive performance of Brahms’s Handel Variations with a stylistically discerning one of the Handel suite...[the Liszt pieces] provide further evidence of Piemontesi’s exceptional talent.” The Telegraph, 4th August 2011

“…Stephen Hough has technically and spiritually digested the first book of Années de pèlerinage to the extent that he can risk personalising certain pieces without sounding the least bit mannered. …he pushes the espressivo rhetoric of the brooding introduction to 'Vallée d'Obermann' and skill keeps the music's narrative trajectory alive through his exquisite tonal control and subtle pedal effects.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2005

“In Trois Morceaux Suisses, which he likens in his scholarly and informative notes to a garland of encores, he powers and swashbuckles his way through a wild assortment of exuberant obstacles” Gramophone Magazine

“Jandó's performances of the Liszt Années de pèlerinage represents his most impressive achievement on record to date...first class, and the feeling throughout is very much of the spontaneity of live music-making.” Penguin Guide