Composer: Ferencz Liszt
Performer: Saskia Giorgini
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Pentatone
Catalogue: PTC5187045
Release: 2023
Size: 1.23 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Consolations, Six Pensées poétiques, S. 172
01. No. 1, Andante con moto
02. No. 2, Un poco più mosso
03. No. 3, Lento placido
04. No. 4, Quasi Algido
05. No. 5, Andantino
06. No. 6, Allegretto sempre cantabile
Caprices-Valses, S.214
07. No. 1, Valse de bravoure in B-flat Major
08. No. 2, Valse mélancolique in E Major
09. No. 3, Valse de concert sur deux motifs de Lucia et Parisina de Donizetti in A Major
10. Valse-Impromptu, S.213
Liebesträume, S541 Nos. 1-3
11. No. 1, Hohe Liebe in A-Flat Major
12. No. 2, Seliger Tod in E-Flat Major
13. No. 3, Oh Lieb, so lang du lieben kannst in A-Flat Major
Legendes for piano, S. 175
14. No. 1, St François d’Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux
15. No. 2, St François de Paule: marchant sur les flots
Consolations is Saskia Giorgini’s second Liszt album, after her critically-acclaimed rendition of the composer’s Harmonies poetiques et religieuses. Named after Liszt’s six Consolations, the album also contains the Caprices-Valses, Valse Impromptu, Legendes and the world-famous Liebestraume. These introspective pieces shed light on love in all its forms and manifestations, showing us human nature in all its different aspects, as well as a different side of Liszt’s colourful musical persona. Saskia Giorgini is one of the most promising pianists of her generation, has won several competitions and is hailed for her technical command and the beauty and poetry of her sound. Her recording of Liszt’s Harmonies poetiques et religieuses received a Diapason d’or, while BBC Music Magazine praised her “formidable technical ability, matched by the architectural sense, harmonic sensibility and coloristic range”, and Gramophone lauded her “masterful authority”. She also released Schubert’s Die schone Mullerin (2020) and Respighi Songs (2021) – both with Ian Bostridge – on Pentatone.
Pianist Saskia Giorgini found both critical and commercial success with her 2022 recording of Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, and this 2023 release, which immediately climbed onto classical best-seller charts, follows directly on the earlier album, with the same Bösendorfer piano and the same recording location, the Lisztzentrum in Raiding, Austria. Listeners will not be disappointed, for Consolations has all the virtues of her first Liszt album and adds a few more. The wonderfully controlled lyricism of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses recurs in the heavily programmatic title work, where Giorgini’s playing hints at the presence of all kinds of stories. She plainly excels in the religious, late Liszt, and there are two wonderful examples here, the Deux Legends, portraits of St. Francis of Assisi praying to the birds, and of St. François de Paule. These are difficult works that combine mysticism with Lisztian virtuosity; annotator Mark Berry is right to stress that Liszt did not fully renounce the virtuosity in his later years, but that is not all. Giorgini is just as good in the flashy Three Caprices-Valses and the reflective Liebesträume, the best-known music on the album. In the Valse-Impromptu, she has an uncanny way of suggesting the feeling of spontaneity that seems to have marked Liszt’s own playing. Will Giorgini go on with Liszt? She certainly has the technical and emotional wherewithal to do so and to take on more famous works than these.