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    Nice list, Lisztian. :) I'm not a huge Liszt fan but one work that I've always enjoyed was Faust Symphony. My favorite performance of that work is with Barenboim and the Berliners. I do like Les Preludes, Orpheus, Prometheus, the Funeral Odes, and Mephisto Waltz No. 1 a lot as well. My Dad is the Liszt man in the family, so everything I've heard comes from his collection. :) Here is a short list of some of my favorite composers (in no particular order):

    Shostakovich, Ravel, Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, Debussy, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Szymanowski, Elgar, Berg, Martinu, Hartmann, Revueltas, Ginastera, Chavez, Honegger, W. Schuman, Casella, Ives, Barber, Roussel, Mussorgsky, Tippett, Rubbra, Tubin, J. Adams, Part, Schmidt, Berlioz, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Braga Santos, Hindemith, Varese, Malipiero, Suk, Koechlin, Boulanger, Lindberg, Panufnik, Myaskovsky, Finzi, Milhaud, Ligeti, and the list goes on

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    Thanks for the welcome! I used to be a member here. Long story short, I'm back on here. I have been an active member on GMG for a few years but really like the atmosphere better here. It seems there's so many more people to talk with.

    The last Liszt recording I listened to was with the Funeral Odes with Ilan Volkov conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony on Hyperion. This is a great recording that I need to revisit. Have you heard it? Of Liszt's orchestral works, what are your favorites?

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    I hear that, I hesitated for months to get the Howard set. It's quite a large and expensive collection. You're definitely right that I have been able to listen to rarely recorded works pari passu with the more famous works. I've enjoyed Le Triomphe Funebre du Tasse quite a bit. There's just something uniquely grand about Liszt's music, even at its most introverted, it breathes that same lyrical spirit.

    Other works I've enjoyed that are either rarely performed, or were reconstructed by Howard himself are:

    Fantasie Über Englische Themen, S 694
    Künstlerfestzug, S 520i
    Pásztor Lakodalman, S 405A
    Prolégomènes a la Divina Commedia, S 158b
    Liszt/David: Bunte Reihe, S 484

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    I would call him my favorite for Liszt only because his is the only set of recordings that I have systematically listened to. I haven't yet branched out into other recordings, but as it stands right now, I enjoy most of his performances.

    I've listened to the whole set at least three times through, although some works I've listened to a few dozen times. His performance of Liszt's transcription of Schumann's "Widmung" is the finest I've ever heard, and I'm not ashamed to admit that my iTunes count registers that I've listened to it 1,531 times over the last year. Going on 1,532 right now.

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    Lisztian, do you have Leslie Howard's Complete Piano Works of Liszt?

    A good number of people seem to disdain Howard's performances of many of Liszt's works. I admit that his "Un Sospiro", and his Hungarian Rhapsodies aren't my favorite performances of those works. Still, his playings of Pelerinage and Harmonies are excellent, as well as his B Minor Sonata performance.

    If you've listened to much Howard, what is your opinion of his interpretations of Liszt?

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    No problem! You've been around and active quite a while, and I've always liked your contributions, so there's no reason I shouldn't send a friend request!

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    Well I think you may find Sauer recording of both piano concertos with Felix Weingartner (who was also a student of Liszt) made in 1938 more polished and acceptable among all, though Sauer once said: "I stayed with Liszt for some months, but I cannot consider myself one of his pupils. He was then very old and could not teach me much. My most important teacher was Nicholas Rubinstein, without any doubt."
    The tempo is slow, and the touch of music soft and gentle, because Sauer was too old to cross over difficulties perhaps ? but as one of Sauer's pupils quoted: "[Sauer told me] Liszt wouldn't recognize his music as it is usually played today ... piano playing now is too loud and too fast... in Liszt's day artists were great souls."
    Well, I think you'd better listen to it first and then we can more talk about it.

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    About Liszt's pupils who made records on 78rps, what can I say ? They all carried the Romantic tradition of piano playing which is almost forgotten for today pianists and music listeners. They played rubato using alternative tempos, they changed or added notes or even pharses into a piece like improvising, they didn't care to play all notes written by the composer perfectly without missing some (for example D'Albert and Lamond), everything that a scholar pianist today avoids from ! Personally I love some of these recordings and I think it deserves patience to enjoy such romantic interpretations, showing the art of piano playing at the turn of the 19th to 20th century which sound so unusaul to our ears.

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    Oh my friend, you're very knowledgeable about Liszt's music !
    It's really a shame for me that I don't know any of his vocal music as well as his organ music ! Trying to find a good recording of Messe De Gran was not successful and I got tired ! Maybe you can help me with.
    I love Dante Symphony too, and what a magical heavenly ending Liszt wrote, i.e. Magnificat, for a hidden female or boys choir, it's really fantastic, isn't it ?
    Piano Sonata in B minor is one of my favorites too, and I can undersand your deep admiration for it, but it deserves a virtuoso pianist not only well technically mastered, but with such a deep sense of music (better to say such a deep heart) to feel the real of this wonderful work pretty good ! I am not the one, so never tried to play it ! Which recording is your favorite ?

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    So many! :) I love his harmonic approach in Eine Faust-Symphonie, is a superb orchestral work, especially third movement Mephisto :devil:, and from his symphonic poems I love Tasso and Mazeppa. From his piano music Hungarian Rhapsody No.7, less known through the others but a pure beauty, Années de pèlerinage completely and La leggierezza from Trois études de concert. From his Miscellaneous works Scherzo und Marsch, Rhapsodie espagnole, Légende No.2 and finally his transcriptions which I love La Chasse after Paganini, version 2 and Glinka Chernomor's marsch (Tcherkessen Marsch) again version. But I think the list should be countinued, still for more ... ;) what is (are) your favorite(s) ?

    Oh ... forgot to tell you, I own many recordings by Liszt's pupils issued on CD: Friedheim, Rosenthal, de Greef, Lamond and others !

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    Hi - i have not forgotten about your recommendations just side tracked by a few 'wasps'. I really appreciate your recommendations and will check them out this afternoon and get back to you.

    Hope you are well

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    Sorry for the delay Lisztian! It's been much harder for me to get to Talk Classical these days; hopefully this will change in the next few months.

    Do you enjoy historical recordings? I can recommend you older or newer recordings depending on what you're more interested in, or if you want, both :D

    Just curious - who is your favorite Liszt pianist? I'm pretty well split between Cziffra and Arrau right now with some Richter and Bolet thrown in. They're all really good at different things.

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    Hi Lisztian!

    It's fantastic that you want to start a Schumann collection. He deserves to have a place in every serious collection out there :) What kind of recommendations would you like in general?

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    Hmmm... Sorry, I went back to listen to Liszt works I used to like; no more, I'm afraid. I do appreciate the experimentalism of his later years, though.

    "Like me" means chop the flash, pretty much. :p
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