best recording of hungarian rhapsody no. 2 franz list

His stop-start tempi meanwhile won’t be for everyone, but it adds plenty of sparkle and fantasy to an already volatile reading, a reading no Liszt fan would want to miss. And in the Friska he goes all out: his banged-out bass notes and reinforced octaves, supremely clear runs unaided by the pedal, and fascinatingly even repeated notes showcase this master’s gift for offering madly dazzling pianistic fireworks through a splendid technique. The Lassan is extremely fantastic (as in fantasy-like) and imaginative, and the rhapsodic quality of his playing strikes me as if everything was just improvised on the spot. One doesn’t look much further than György Cziffra for thrills, and here he delivers them aplenty. But otherwise it’s a controlled and thoughtful interpretation that, while slightly neutral and lacking that extra ounce of capriciousness, deserves a listen. Of course, Hofmann was most famed for his technique, and his runs are simply spectacular in their evenness, clarity, velocity and shape. Primitive recording quality aside, it’s a very beautifully shaped rendition, with a flowing Lassan and a suitably exciting Friska. Josef Hofmann’s version was recorded in 1922 and has appeared in his Great Pianists of the 20th Century album. This being a piano roll, the digital stereo sonics are fine though extremely reverberant. Nor is the Friska harsh or flashy in any way, the latter of which is quite the opposite, I would say, of the purported pianism of Liszt himself. The whole impression is one of extreme aristocracy and good taste, and while Friedheim’s technique is everywhere to be heard in the Friska (note the precision of those repeated broken-octave figurations), the Lassan moves on suavely and tastefully, without a hint of sentimental saccharine-ness that would become many later versions’ affectation.

Instead, what we have here is the great Liszt protégé Arthur Friedheim’s piano roll recording, surely a useful, if possibly not entirely authentic, key to the style of this romantic virtuoso of the golden age. The recordingsĭon’t be fooled by the album cover: Liszt never recorded anything on a piano roll. Suffice it to say that the sheer amount of renditions of the piano original out there is enough for me to cover quite a few thousand words. Therefore, I present you with a comprehensive review on what is arguably the most overplayed Liszt piece ever written: the Second Hungarian Rhapsody.Ī caveat: I’ve decided to eschew all the orchestral transcriptions of the work and instead concentrate my review on the piano versions instead, for the simple reason that I feel the orchestral version fails to capture the innately pianistic writing and color of the original. After Top Ear’s previous two comprehensives, both on Brahms (the 4th symphony and Ein Deutsches Requiem respectively), we’ve decided we should do our third one on a smaller single work.

Best recording of hungarian rhapsody no. 2 franz list