COMPOSERS: Liszt
LABELS: Nimbus
WORKS: Rhapsodie espagnole; TwoConcert Études; Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este; Petrarch Sonnet No. 104; Légendes; Mephisto Waltz No. 3; Four Little Piano Pieces
PERFORMER: Mark Anderson (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: NI 5484
That Anderson came third in the 1993 Leeds International Piano Competition (the TV audience poll placed him first) strengthens my suspicion that such events should be judged by television audiences. Here is a supreme pianistic talent with clear ideas on interpretation.
Liszt described the piano as ‘lacking in variety of accents and tone-colours’ but it spurred his masterly inventiveness, and although Chopin and Mendelssohn deplored his flamboyance, his textures are varying, his moods evocative. Anderson’s forest really does murmur, his fountains cascade, his birds twitter. He conveys in full measure the imagery of the Spanish Rhapsody, the assurance of St Francis’s walk across the water, the diablerie of the third Mephisto Waltz. A splendid disc. Don’t miss it. Wadham Sutton