Liszt Recital
Janina Fialkowska
ATMA ACD2 2641
Canadian pianist of world renown, Janina Fialkowska made an heroic recovery from cancer in 2002 and bravely returned to her brilliant career. Although primarily known for her Chopin interpretations she now surprises us with a full blown Liszt recital. A sensitively selected program of not-so-well-known works of enormous difficulty played with tremendous skill, masculine power, stamina and charming feminine grace would sum up this very successful issue. Interestingly, only two of the pieces are original Liszt compositions. All the others are transcriptions, or rather complete reworkings, of Schubert, Chopin and even Gounod, all propelled into Liszt’s magical sound world.
First an elegant Waltz by Schubert from Soirées de Vienne, greatly extended by Liszt’s cascading fioraturas is dashed off with superb panache. Next comes original Liszt, Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude, a deeply religious piece that reminds me of the Petrarca Sonnets with most heartfelt and beautifully built up melodies. The “Polish Connection” brings a rarely heard set of six songs by Chopin put into piano settings and dedicated to Liszt’s paramour, Polish princess Carolyne. They include virtuoso mazurkas, tender nocturnes and a wild, stormy finale that thunders along like the Revolutionary Etude.
The final portion of the disc dedicated to Goethe’s Faust is represented by a piano transcription of the second movement (Gretchen) of the Faust Symphony. Fialowska’s sensitive, deeply felt and fully understood performance sounds even better on the piano than with full orchestra. Here one can concentrate on the girlish longings of its simple melody followed by the more menacing themes of Faust. The two in combination build to a passionate climax like a love duet.
A sumptuous paraphrase of the delightful waltz from Gounod’s Faust brings us to a brilliant close. Liszt sums it up by saying that, “in the compass of the piano’s seven octaves it includes the entire scope of the orchestra, and the 10 fingers of a single man suffice to render all the harmonies produced by the concurrence of over a hundred concerted instruments.”
