Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Liszt: Via Crucis; Consolations; Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Nos. 8-9). Øystein Stensheim, tenor; Olle Holmgren, bass-baritone; Ditte Marie Bræin & Magnhild Korsvik, sopranos; Mari Askvik, mezzo-soprano; The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir; Grete Pedersen, conductor; Leif Ove Andsnes, pianist. Sony 19802856672

 

“During his Weimar years,” writes Malcom Hayes in the liner notes, “Liszt revised for publication many of his earlier piano works. Among these were Consolations and Harmonies poétiques et religieuses – two cycles differing in many ways, but both showing how an anti-virtuosic aspect of his piano style was there from the start. Consolations, especially, has the feeling of music imagined almost as a conscious antidote to the world of the spectacular virtuoso performer.” 

It is understandable to promote this disc’s music as embodying another aspect of Liszt apart from the virtuosic one. But “anti-virtuosic”? “A conscious antidote to the world of the spectacular virtuoso performer”? Hayes comes across as apologetic. One senses behind his words the sentiment of “I get that some don’t like Liszt’s virtuosic music, but they should try this stuff instead!” Thus do these offerings get deployed in opposition to the virtuosic works, couched in an antagonism that doesn’t actually exist. And for what? To placate a longstanding snobbery that really ought to be confronted and shamed instead? True, the included works show another side to Liszt, but can’t something be non-virtuosic rather than anti-virtuosic? Much more apt is pianist Leif Ove Andsnes’s shorter statement on a preceding page. As someone who has successfully performed and recorded Liszt’s virtuosic music (check out the fine EMI 724355700223), Andsnes thankfully avoids Hayes’s ‘self-own.’  

 

All of that aside, here is a splendid project that shows Andsnes’s pianism at its best. It begins with him serving as accompanist in the version of Via Crucis Liszt arranged for vocal soloists, choir, and piano. While all of the music on this recording might be called “introspective,” Via Crucis radiates a pious austerity that may surprise those accustomed to the composer’s more famous works. Absent is the flair of the first Mephisto Waltz, or the rollicking fun of some of the Hungarian Rhapsodies. The seriousness suggested by the subject matter (the 14 “Stations,” or meditations, relating to Christ’s suffering and death during Good Friday) is alleviated slightly only by some lyrical tenderness in the final two numbers. Andsnes plays his part with a gentle strength that fits the atmosphere perfectly. It’s not music I’d listen to every day, but I don’t know how it could be done much better.

I’m a longtime devotee of the six Consolations, having played most of them myself. I find this music every bit as comforting as the title suggests. Good interpreters are plenty, including Sandrine Erdely-Sayo on a recording issued just last summer (Navona NV6632). But Andsnes applies a skill and conviction that are difficult to match. Although Hayes is correct insofar as this is not the most technically demanding fare by Liszt, I doubt any novice would be able to replicate Andsnes’s animating sweep. In his hands these pieces seem to have life and breath of their own; in the hands of someone like me they merely tinkle along pleasantly (if I’m lucky). Virtuosity doesn’t only manifest itself in the fast, loud, and notey.

What the two included selections from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses reinforce for me is that Liszt knew how to reconcile the numinous with ordinary human experience better than almost everyone else. He did this in his introspective and virtuosic music alike. The Andante lagrimoso may lack the technical brilliance of its collection-mate, Funérailles, but the outpouring of grief is no less affecting. It speaks as directly as anything Liszt wrote, enriched by his distinctive character and imagination. With the Miserere, d’après Palestrina we start to veer back toward the virtuosic with rapid arpeggios later surrounding a hymn-like tune presented at the outset. It’s a short piece, but just the right length to match the plaintive prayer for mercy inscribed on the score. Andsnes gives wonderful renditions of both pieces.

In his book The Romantic Generation, Charles Rosen tackles the perennial charge of vulgarity against Liszt and seems to suggest that this vulgarity somewhat paradoxically comprises part of the composer’s unique greatness as a Romantic artist. But maybe Liszt’s willingness to indulge the popular impulse is not so much vulgarity as it is a valid wish to connect with listeners on an immediate level. Maybe what many haughtily see as bad taste in Liszt is instead an incomparably big-hearted artist embracing the visceral as part of music that is both exhilarating and poignant. In the end Liszt’s “introspective” works aren’t anti-virtuosic; they’re just different corners of the vibrant world that he invites us to inhabit with him.