Liszt: Soirees Italiennes / Paganini Etudes / Rossini and Spontini Impromptu / Rossini Variations

"Splendidly performed and recorded in Vienna this volume in the continuing series shows no sign of flagging. Luisi is an excellent choice in these undemanding early Romantic piano arrangements so radiant with Italian sunshine."
(MusicWeb Jan 2010)

David Denton
David's Review Corner, September 2009
It must have been a constant battle for Franz Liszt to titillate his audiences with works of ever increasing technical bravura, often resorting to paraphrases to maintain the unending flow. He turned to Mercadante to provide the themes for the six sections that form the Soirees italiennes, the attractive melodies mixing lyric passages with moments of hair-raising difficulty. Il galop and Il brindisi stand beside the charm of Il pastore Svizzero (The Swiss shepherd), and a brilliant Bolero brings it to a conclusion. It was seeing the great violin virtuoso, Paganini, that drove the seventeen year old Liszt to seek the same level of perfection in his piano playing. As a tribute he wrote his Etudes d'execution transcendante d'apres Paganini as a set of six studies that were published in 1840, but enlarged and somewhat simplified for the version we normally hear and published in 1851. This disc includes three of those that were changed in the enlarged score, the Sixth being the study on Paganini's famous Capriccio No. 24. He was only thirteen when he completed the Impromptu brillant sur des themes de Rossini et Spontini, the themes coming from two operas by each composer that are unknown today. He must have been a brilliant prodigy to play such a score. The release ends with Sept variations sur un theme de Rossini composed the same year and using music from the opera, Ermione. The disc is played, appropriately, by an Italian pianist, Gianluca Luisi, who gives very literal readings that show an affinity with Liszt in brilliant mode, but is at his best in those passages that thrive on affection. Playing a superb Bosendorfer piano, the recorded sound has the required weight and impact.