Liszt: Ouvertüre zu R Wagners Tannhäuser S442

Risto-Matti Marin’s new release Magic Fire and other Wagner Transcriptions includes piano transcriptions by six composers in honour of Wagner’s anniversary in 2013. Risto-Matti Marin (b.1976) graduated as a Doctor of Music from the Sibelius Academy in 2010 with an artistic degree in piano transcriptions. His solo CD’s on Alba range from baroque and romantic music all the way to contemporary works. All have received high acclaim from home (Finland) and abroad.

“Idil Biret’s new Liszt album prompts a reappraisal of her extraordinary talent… In her Liszt Sonata… you will hear playing of a formidable power and assurance… There is no mistaking her lightning refl exes in the second of the Paganini Etudes and her vivo in the imitation sautillé bowing of No. 4 would make even Heifetz envious. Biret’s brilliant, iron-clad Steinway is well recorded and… in her Liszt, there is stunning profi ciency and a forbidding manner very much her own.” Gramophone, 2011

This is the sixth and final instalment of Leslie Howard's thorough survey of Liszt's opera paraphrases and transcriptions. The series now includes all the significant versions of every such work he composed. There are some real rarities, here including three complete works, never published by Liszt, which our pianist has prepared from the manuscripts. Also present is the legendary Tannhäuser Overture transcription – one of the most monumental of all piano works.

La voce del populo wrote of this Bulgarian artist “The young musician now displayed all signs of a fully mature artist: technique, intelligence, passion and charm… She plays with a full, honest and warm sound.”

Born in 1974,Transylvanian pianist Ferenc Vizi graduated with first prize from the Paris Conservatoire in 1998. He has also carried off a number of other prestigious prizes: 1st in the Saratov competition (Russia, 2000), 4th in the Hamamatsu (Japan, 2000), 2nd prize and special jury prize in the Arthur Rubinstein (Tel-Aviv, 2001) and 2nd prize in the Munich ARD competition in 2002. He regularly partners as a chamber musician the 'cellists Henri Demarquette, François Salque and Françoise Groben, and the violinists Graf Mourja and Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabedian.

An original contribution to the Verdi and Wagner celebrations of 2013: the complete Verdi and Wagner transcriptions by Liszt!

In a time when there was no recorded sound it was customary to promote the works of a composer by playing transcriptions for solo piano of well known works or excerpts. Super virtuoso Franz Liszt was a champion in this genre, his transcriptions are an art form in themselves, his complex and highly virtuosic piano writing enhanced rather than diminished the impact of the original work.

These recordings offer the complete transcriptions of two of Liszt’s heroes: Verdi and Wagner, featuring the famous Rigoletto paraphrase, the Duetto from Aida, the Spinnnerlied from Der Fliegende Holländer, the notorious Tannhäuser Overture (one of the most difficult pieces ever written) and the moving Isoldes Liebestod.

Played with authority and conviction by Michele Campanella, one of Italy’s foremost Liszt specialists, on a 1892 Steinway piano, lending a sense of authenticity to the performance.