With technique to burn but poetry at the fore, Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s recordings of the two Liszt concertos have always held a special affection in many a music-lover’s heart. They are reissued as per the original CD couplings – with the demonic ‘Totentanz’ and the multi-coloured ‘Hungarian Fantasy’.
FRANZ LISZT
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major
Totentanz
Hungarian Fantasy
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Charles Dutoit
‘Indeed, I have only praise. Each of the four works here is well characterized, and the typically Lisztian varying tempos are spot on, unrushed but never deliberate and always leading naturally from one to the next. Climactic passages are powerful, but the sound remains pleasant and avoids the crudity that can emerge from these scores in less sensitive hands’ Gramophone