When Liszt composed his 'Etudes d'execution transcendante (to give them their full and formidable title), he aimed for an unprecedented scale and grandeur. The first 1836 version toyed with simple, Czernyesque ideas while the second, in 1838, went to the opposite extreme; clotted, musically indigestible, and impractical; they could be played by Liszt alone. The third and final version, completed in 1851, clarified and refined an awkward giant though, as Piemontesi tells us in his note, the technical and musical challenge remains intimidating. Played as display pieces the 'transcendental' etudes have fostered an overall dislike of Liszt by pianists as eminent as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andras Schiff and Fou Ts'ong, all of whom abandoned Liszt early in their careers. For them excess and theatricality replace a truer poetry, while for Clara Schumann ' there is too much of the tinsel and the drum.' It was left to Alfred Brendel to stress Liszt's nobility and take issue with performances that reduced such quality to an ignominious level.
And it is here that Francisco Piemontesi leaves such a magnificent and indelible mark, compelling you at every level to reconsider music which when badly played easily topples into bombast and false heroics, He could hardly be more dazzling in the opening 'Preludio,' a brief prophet of all that is to follow. In the second and untitled A minor Etude he varies the fierce accentuation to wondrous and fulminating effect, while in the calmer waters of 'Paysage' he reminds you that these are inclusive studies, concerned with lyricism as well as heroics. His vivid characterisation in 'Mazeppa' cuts through a potential for histrionics, while 'Feux Follets'(most intricate, luminous and demanding of Etudes)is given with unfailing mastery, allowing for a characterisation that captures all of its flashing half lights. If Sviatoslav Richter in his legendary 1958 Prague performance sacrifice's evocation for speed Piemontesi is alert to the poetic quality beneath the mercurial surface. What Byronic gloom and grandeur he finds in 'Vision,' and his musical focus in 'Eroica' is the reverse of self--serving bravura. There is 'sturm und drang' with a vengeance in 'Wilde Jagd' while enclosing a central section where the melody is made to sing and soar above its polyrhythmic accompaniment. PIemontesi's sonority is powerful, rich and full in 'La Ricordanza'(for Busoni, the equivalent of 'a packet of yellowed love letters') and in the, again, untitled F minor 'appassionata' Etude in F minor his clarity forbids an all too familiar barn- storming, making you wonder when if ever you have heard a more musicianly performance. 'Harmonie du Soir' is superbly judged, whether in intimacy or rhetorical grandeur, and there is a final triumph in 'Chasse-neige,' a baleful masterpiece evoking a landscape relentlessly smothered in snow( 'for the listener, who listening in the snow,/And nothing himself beholds/Nothing, that is not there and the nothing that is.' Wallace Stevens
Today, Liszt's B minor Sonata, once considered as incomprehensible as it was unplayable, is in the repertoires of the easy majority of great pianists. Taken so formidably in hand by Vladimir Horowitz in 1932 this land mark in the history of music has never looked back. Again, and to an even greater degree than in the Transcendental Etudes, the challenge remains immense. If many play it, few reach the heart of a daunting but always elusive masterpiece. The Sonata was the only work by Liszt played by Fou Ts'ong, and Ashkenazy came to regret not including it is in his repertoire. Yet even with legendary recordings by pianists of the rank of Horowitz, Gilels, Richter, Brendel, Arrau and Argerich Piemontesi ranks with and arguably rises above the very highest. From him Liszt's stature shines through at every level. Of how many performances of the Sonata can you say that it emerges as pure music, the innate poetic instinct backed by an overwhelming and unfaltering command.
PIemontesi has a sizeable discography to his credit, including the last three Schubert Sonatas and the 24 Debussy Preludes, yet his latest offering is awesome indeed, making you look eagerly ahead to his recording of the Brahms B flat Concerto. Pentatone's sound is gloriously full- bodied and only the sleeve with its reference to the pianist's 'delightful' performance of the Sonata deals in comic and misleading understatement.
Bryce Morrison