Liszt: Grande Étude de Paganini, S. 141 No. 5 'La Chasse'

Emil Gilels played a sonata by Scarlatti at his first public concert in 1929 and included them in his tours to the West in the 1950s. These recordings present a splendid group of the composer’s widely contrasting moods. Gilels was a true virtuoso in the Lisztian tradition, combining musical integrity with rarely equalled technique. The Fantasia was one of the works with which he won the First Soviet All-Union Competition in 1933, while his recordings of the Hungarian Rhapsodies and three works by Chopin are full of character and personality. A recently discovered notebook in which Gilels logged some of his recording sessions has made the dating of these recordings more accurate in this edition.

Ward Marston, audio restoration engineer

Earl Wild’s death in 2010 was a farewell to one of the greatest pianists from the Golden Age of the Piano. His career spanned the biggest part of the 20th Century (more than 80 years), and he played with such legendary conductors as Toscanini, Reiner, Horenstein, Mitropoulos, Klemperer, Ormandy, Dorati and Solti. A dazzling virtuoso, he made the music of Liszt a central point in his repertoire. His performances of Gnomenreigen, La Leggierezza or the Mephisto Waltz were legendary. This 2-CD set offers some of the finest Liszt playing on disc. CD 1 was issued on Vanguard Classics as “The Demonic Liszt” and shows the devilish side of Liszt, the multifaceted genius. The second CD contains live recordings from different periods, red-hot performances of great brilliance and passion.

Though Hungarian by birth, and having studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Louis Kentner, like so many others of Jewish origin, immigrated to London in the mid 1930s, aware that central Europe was not the best place to be at that time for someone of his race. He was to remain in London for the rest of his life, becoming very much part of British musical life both as pianist and, later, as teacher. His somewhat sensational London debut took place in the Aeolian Hall in October 1936 where he gave an all Liszt recital. As a direct result he was signed up by HMV and over the next fifteen years, in addition to much other repertoire, he made a large number of Liszt recordings which featured not only the often recorded etudes and Hungarian Rhapsodies but also premiere recordings of many of Liszt's more important, but then less well known, larger works. Our first APR title (APR5514) featured such unusual works as the Scherzo & March, the Berceuse and the first Polonaise; on the current disc, in addition to a number of the well known aforementioned etudes, we find a group of late pieces, including the bizarre Czárdás Macabre, which was only published in the year of its recording, and the Meyerbeer/Liszt 'Les Patineurs' scherzo. This later piece is one of Liszt's most brilliant operatic transcriptions, but is strangely little known. It is perhaps Kentner's most stunning recording and a fitting way to end this fascinating recital.