Roger Muraro – Franz Liszt

Program:
Fantasia and fugue on B-A-C-H
Der Fliegende Holländer, Spinnerlied
Tristan une Isolde: Isoldens Liebestod
Hungarian rapsody no 10
Saint François de Paule marchant sur les eaux
Sonata in B minor
Bonus online track: Hungarian rapsody no 15 ‘Rácókzy’

Some critics first:

• This CD is entitled “The piano of tomorrow”: this title would be best suited for the recent album by Marino Formenti which confronts more premonitory pieces by Liszt with scores by contemporary composers.
• The visual (for me).
• The sound, correct but with rather blurry harmonics.

Many applauds then:

• Roger Muraro is an outstanding pianist: fluidity, virtuosity, colors: an enchantment (the sequencings in Tristan!).
• The program: a survey of main characteristics of Liszt’s piano: Bach, Wagner, transcriptions, religiosity and Hungarian music.
• For me the best part may be the Fantasia on BACH, splendid. For Saint François, I had preferred more characterized phrasing.
• And then a very good lecture of the Sonata (that’s a rather short comment!: everyone has his own opinion on he way this extraordinary piece should be done – maybe later on I’ll make a complete interpretative survey just to characterize the best versions – this present one may very well belong to them).

A very good Liszt CD.