Phantasmagoria (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Liszt: Sonata in B Minor; Cantique d’amour; Réminiscences de Don Juan. Lise de la Salle, piano. Naïve V8602

Lise de la Salle plays piano with such passion and earnestness that I feel bad giving her less than a glowing review here. But alas, it must be so. To pull off a successful Liszt Sonata, one needs more than simply these two attributes; among other considerations, full ranges of technique and sound are required if the music’s steep challenges are to be successfully met. While I am generally satisfied with de la Salle’s technique (despite the occasional muddy passage), I am much less impressed with her sound. She spends most of her time inhabiting one of two places dynamically: an unassuming sort of piano and a rather shrill forte. Too fleetingly do we experience any sort of middle range. More seriously, de la Salle has a very limited color palette. The quieter, tenderer areas of the Sonata are all too much alike, as are the thundering virtuosic passages. A great pianist can craft each of these areas into the singular experiences that they are supposed to be, making the whole work a microcosm of a lifetime’s worth of growth, thought, experience, and feeling. But de la Salle is unable to differentiate her sound enough to come even close to this. And so, while there are plenty of lovely and exciting moments on the surface (her earnestness shining through), the whole journey amounts to much less than it ought to be by the time it is finished. Jennifer Lesieur writes in the liner notes that the Sonata “glows with a special light in the Romantic repertoire.” I wish I could say the same for this performance in the recording catalogue.

Something similar could be said for “Cantique d’amour” from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Here de la Salle has the right moods for the piece, but her sound is not silky or otherwise imaginative enough to make it a distinguished performance. Much more successful is her take on Réminiscences de Don Juan. True, the deficits just identified in the other two works don’t suddenly resolve here. But they don’t matter as much either. Maybe more than anything, de la Salle enjoys a good pianistic romp, and that’s exactly what a fun operatic fantasy allows her to do without harm. It’s a thrilling performance that makes me smile. Alone among the material recorded here, it’s something I’m excited to revisit.

It sounds insulting to say that my impression of de la Salle is of a pianist who has plenty of flair and rather less musical depth. But I don’t mean it that way. Not everyone can play like Martha Argerich or Krystian Zimerman. There’s a definite place for pianists like de la Salle, who may be best at showpieces, even quality showpieces like Réminiscences. Sometimes I don’t want “deep”; I just want a pianist to put a sloppy grin on my face with over-the-top album titles like Phantasmagoria and barnstorming performances of lighter fare. Liszt himself would probably agree.

On the other hand, wonderful Réminiscences aren’t difficult to find. And if that is the primary reason to purchase this recording, I can’t quite muster a recommendation for casual listeners. If you want one Liszt Sonata in your collection, this certainly shouldn’t be it. Even if you want a dozen or so great ones, de la Salle’s is far from making the cut. But if you’re a Lisztian or a collector of Sonata in B Minor performances, or both, go ahead and purchase this disc. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself listening to the other works on it more often.