Liszt Consolations, S172; Caprices-Valses, S214; Valse-Impromptu, S213; Liebesträume Nos 1-3; Légendes, S175 Saskia Giorgini (piano) Pentatone PTC 5187 045 82:59 mins
Our idea of Liszt the pianist is so caught up with the caricatures of his time, showing him at the piano surrounded by swooning women, or with eight arms spreading across the keyboard, that it can be easy to forget what a multi-faceted composer for his instrument he actually was. Saskia Giorgini puts that right in her latest solo album, encompassing a range of his sets and cycles, recorded on a Bösendorfer piano with a wonderful range of colours in its gift.
The Italian-Dutch pianist is best in the most poetic pieces in this recital, such as the opening six Consolations, played with beautiful tone, phrasing and shading. Here we are miles away from the razzle-dazzle celebrity virtuoso; this is the composer immersed in the artistic world around and before him, with echoes of Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin. If there’s an understated quality to the whole album, her approach does repay close listening – especially in these six-nocturne-like pieces.
Giorgini doesn’t forget the impressive showman in Liszt, but in the scintillating Valse-caprices she errs on the side of good taste, and a splash more panache wouldn’t go amiss. But the three Liebesträume are beautifully done, particularly the First, in which Giorgini conjures a wonderful feeling that we’ve stepped out of time.
If the album began with Liszt rooted in the Romantic past, it ends looking to the Impressionist future. Giorgini finds a good balance between the evocative birds and transcendent religious feeling in the first of the Deux Légendes, the silvery grace of her playing a contrast to the rumblings of the second.
Rebecca Franks
