Chopin – Ballades 1-4 / Liszt – Years of Pilgrimage — Tamás Vásáry, Piano

Frederic Chopin (1810 – 1849)

Ballades Nos. 1-4

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Annees de pelerinage , Italie (Years Of Pilgrimage, Italy)

Tamás Vásáry, Piano

Recorded in the Concert Hall, BBC Broadcasting House, London, February 1, 1986

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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:

An oldie but a goodie – and this came in BBC Music Magazine subscription – a magazine and a CD – come on!

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LINER NOTES (by Jeremy Siepmann):

Chopin’s Four Ballades are among his most substantial and dramatic works., and though they weren’t designed as a set, they’re frequently performed as such, and with great success. No two of them conform to a single basic structure but they all have strong elements of sonata form, though none of them actually adhere to it in any conventional sense.

This is combined, particularly in  No. 4, with a sometimes highly polyphonic variation technique of quite extraordinary resourcefulness and skill. In the depth of their emotion, their range of feeling and their dramatic character, they give us Chopin at his greatest and make nonsense of the old saw that he was essentially a miniaturist who was at sea in larger forms.

By contrast, the second book of Liszt’s Annees de pelerinage (Years of PIlgrimage) was published as a set, though most of the pieces in it have flourished on their own and are more often played separately than together.

When the first book, his Swiss years, is essentially a series of nature studies, the second, drawing on his experiences in Italy, derives its inspiration from the world of art, in all its senses.

All the pieces in it date from his years as a spellbinding and peerless traveling virtuoso, yet only two give any hint of this (the Petrarch Sonnet No. 104 and the so-called ‘Dante Sonata’).

Even in this relatively early part of his life, Liszt was already anticipating many of the most important ‘innovations’ of Wagner, Debussy and Mahler.

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TRACK LISTING :

Frederic Chopin (1810 – 1849)

Ballades Nos. 1-4

1. No. 1 in G minor, Opus 23 [7:58]
2. No. 2 in F / A minor, Opus 38 [6:45]
3. No. 3 in A-flat, Opus 47 [8:17]
4. No. 4 in F minor, Opus 52 [9:42]

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Annees de pelerinage (Years of PIlgrimage), Italy

1. Sposalizio [5:49]
2. Il penserosa [3:10]
3. Canzonetta delete Salvator Rosa [2:23]
4. Petrarch Sonnet No. 47 [3:45]
5. Petrarch Sonnet No. 104 [4:46]
6. Petrarch Sonnet No. 123 [4:50]
7. Apres une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata [14:17]

FINAL THOUGHT:

I love finding these little gems in my collection. So happy I’m doing this project!

Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company