Piano Naxoi coming up...

Gyorgy LIGETI: Etudes for Piano Books I & II Books I & II (1 - 14a) Idil Biret, piano Cat. 8.555777

Franz LISZT/Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6 (Piano Transcriptions) Konstantin Scherbakov, piano Cat. 8.557170

Considering the very high quality of her Boulez sonatas, Biret's Ligeti should be a real treat. As for the Beethoven-Liszt, the music is a question mark. Liszt is scrupulously faithful to LvB's scores, but even Liszt himself didn't intend these arrangements to be performed. OTOH, lately Scherbakov has just been getting better and better, so who knows.

Oh dear. I have these, and have been unable to listen to them. Really, they are quite atrocious. A very brave and valiant thing to do (especially the recording of 14a) but falls extremely far short of what it needs to be, IMHO. Perhaps I've just been spoiled by Aimard.

Understandable, but (a) have you heard Ullen in these, and (b) just why are they quite atrocious?

a) Yes, I've heard Ullen and rate him very highly (though still not as highly as Aimard I think).

b) To give a proper reasoning I'd have to listen to them all more carefully and I'm not sure I could face it. It feels really cruel to criticise anyone for their Ligeti as I have tackled a couple myself and I know that they are *horrendously* difficult, indeed much more difficult than they sound (and they don't exactly sound simple!); however, Biret is far too slow, far too clunky and irregular (not enough sense of Ligeti's all-important 'continuum', for sure) and somehow makes this music unexciting to listen to. All IMHO as ever.

According to (I think) Walker, Liszt performed the 6th. Where does it say he didn't intend them for performance? I only ask because I like them so much, and I'm not put off by their being transcriptions. Apparently more pianists are recording them these days and, I assume, programming them live. Horowitz was quoted as saying late in life that he wished he'd programmed them.

I've been buying Scherbakov's versions, but am getting increasingly dissatisfied with them. His Eroica seemed completely devoid of drama or passion, except such as was associated with churning out lots of notes . It was deadpan; the climactic passages kept reminding me of the Keystone Cops. For that one try Biret or Woodward.

- Phil Caron

Thanks for interpreting my meaning correctly, when the 'they' in my question was a wildly inaccurate pronoun reference.

I have heard Aimard do several of these both live and on CD, and he's excellent. But I also heard Ullen do the whole set (including what's written of Book III) live in a single recital, and it was one of the most staggering examples of sheer virtuosity I've ever experienced. The poor man practically keeled over from exhaustion after the last one ended. From your description, the Biret does not sound encouraging.

My eyes popped out a bit when I read the above too. There is no doubt in my mind that Liszt indeed intended these for performance, as in the 1830s and 1840s Beethoven was still a modern composer in need of championing, and one couldn't exactly take a drive to the local Tower to pick up 40 or more versions of the Eroica by as many conductors all in clean digital sound. Live orchestral performances of the symphonies were difficult to come by, and Liszt fulfilled a need by transcribing them using all available means of pianistic thunder. Quite the contrary to the OP's assertion, Groves' (1980 edition) emphatically states, 'The extraordinary breadth of his repertory is shown by the list of works he played in concert between 1838 and 1848... In addition to transcriptions of overtures by Beethoven, Berlioz, Mozart, Rossini and Weber and symphonies of Beethoven (nos. 5-7) and Berlioz, he performed concertos by Bach, Beethoven . . . .etc.'

I remember reading an anecdote, in fact (but can't find the source), that after Liszt performed one of the LvB 9 in public. A listener congratulated him with the slightly left-handed compliment that for all his thunder, Liszt could not have performed the opening of Mozart's G minor, as there was no possible way to transcribe the opening viola figuration for two hands - an objection to which Liszt graciously and good-humoredly conceded.

You are both right. However, I would go even further than to say that Liszt intended his transcriptions to be performed, which he surely did. (He had some

Thank you, Samir, for one of your most illuminating posts.

Beethoven-Liszt a question mark while Ligeti is a treat?

What have you been drinking ?!?

Are there readily available Ullen recordings of these? (Sorry, I'm a little lazy tonight.)