LISZT Bénédiction de Dieu VLADIMIR 12 NI6212 FELTSMANNI 6212 1 Franz Liszt Vladimir Feltsman on Nimbus Bénédiction de Dieu J S Bach NI2541 7 Keyboard Concertos, with the Orchestra of St Luke’s NI2549 Art of Fugue Vladimir Feltsman NI2507 Goldberg Variations NI2516 The Well-Tempered Clavier Books 1 & 2 1 Liebesträume, No. 3 in A flat major (1850) 4.53 NI6176 The Six English Suites NI6207 The Six Partitas 2 Ballade No. 2 in B minor (1853) 14.47 Six Consolations (1850) 16.20 Beethoven 3 I Andante con moto 1.11 NI2561 Piano Sonatas Op.106 ‘Hammerklavier’; Op.101 NI2575 Piano Sonatas Op.109; Op.110; Op.111 4 II Un poco piu mosso 3.08 NI6120 Piano Sonatas ‘Pathetique’; ‘Moonlight’; ‘Appassionata’ 5 III Lento placido 4.01 Chopin 6 IV Quasi adagio 2.31 NI6184 The Complete Waltzes & Impromptus 7 V Andantino 2.37 NI6128 Four Ballades; Fantasie in F minor; Polonaise-Fantasie 8 VI Allegretto sempre cantabile 2.52 NI6126 The Complete Nocturnes; Barcarolle; Berceuse

9 Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (1853) 17.26 NI6162 A Tribute to Tchaikovsky 10 Berceuse in F sharp major (1876) 3.34 A programme of short characteristic pieces 11 Elegia (1874) 5.19 NI6148 A Tribute to Rachmaninoff Includes Concerto No.3, conducted by Mikhail Pletnev 12 La lugubre gondola (2nd version) (1885) 8.34 NI6198 A Tribute to Scriabin 13 En rêve, nocturne (1886) 2.25 Includes Sonata no.4 & Vers la flamme

Total playing time 73.16 For track list visit www.wyastone.co.uk

2 NI6212 NI 6212 11 A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the Distinguished Franz Liszt carried a walking stick with the faces of St. Francis of Assisi, Faust’s Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and Gretchen and Mephistopheles carved on it. Apparently he longed for the Divine, is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. craved women and worldly pleasures, and was fascinated by the diabolical. These He is the founder and Artistic Director of the International Festival-Institute three passions, three aspects of his character, shaped and defined both his private life PianoSummer at SUNY New Paltz, a three-week-long, intensive training and his creativity, although it seems he had better luck reconciling his conflicting program for advanced piano students that attracts major young talents from all aspirations in music than in life. His finest work, the Sonata in B minor for piano, is a over the world. textbook of his amazing craft of transformation: one theme, one element appears in different guises – divine, human, and diabolical – creating an incredible inner drama Mr. Feltsman’s extensive discography has been released on the Melodiya, Sony of temptation and turbulent passion stemming from one source. Classical, and Nimbus labels. His discography includes eight albums of clavier Liszt was a Renaissance man – pianist, composer, conductor, educator, writer, tireless works of J.S. Bach, recordings of Beethoven’s last five piano sonatas, solo piano champion of music old and new, and a great teacher. Many major pianists of the works of Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Messiaen and Silvestrov, twentieth century belonged to the lineage of Liszt and his students, a lineage that is still as well as concerti by Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and alive today. He was one of the most influential artists and creative personalities of the Prokofiev. nineteenth century; his influence is apparent in the music of Wagner and Tchaikovsky, Franck and Saint-Saens, Reger, Debussy and Ravel, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, Bartok Mr. Feltsman is an American citizen and lives in upstate New York. and Messiaen. He believed in the high calling of the artist and the transcendental power of music. He was a man of character and convictions who tried to realize his www.feltsman.com global vision and goals until the end of his life.

Over time it became a sign of “good taste and sophistication” to be condescending towards Liszt the composer. It is true that the quality of his work is uneven and there is some “incidental” music that ought not to have been published at all. Nevertheless, he created a body of compositions of the finest quality, primarily for piano, that is not inferior to the work of his contemporaries Chopin and Schumann. Judged (a terrible word!) by his best works, Liszt was clearly a great innovator of form, a composer who found his own musical language and aesthetics and created his own piano technique.

10 NI6212 NI 6212 3 The greatest pianist of his time, Liszt opened a new era in piano performance, turning it into a happening, an event. Inspired by Paganini, he transformed the status of the VLADIMIR FELTSMAN virtuoso performer and became the first celebrity musician, with an image like that of a rock star today. He is rightly credited with the invention of the recital: before Liszt, Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and public concerts usually featured several musicians, but after him, a recital – a constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses performance by just one musician – became a staple, a norm that endures today. music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the This recording brings together thirteen compositions, most written during Liszt’s very most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. productive period from the middle 1840s to the early 1850s. The last two, however, were written in 1880s towards the end of his life and are strikingly different. The late works explore new horizons and open new possibilities of musical language. They are Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic private meditations, austere, almost minimalist in their precision: the harmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of foundation becomes fluid and ambiguous and tonality as such is taken away from Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. He also studied under our feet. We are on quicksand here, without gravitation to a definite key, conducting at both the Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) exploring uncharted territory. These late works of Liszt contain prophetic insights into Conservatories. In 1971, Mr. Feltsman won the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long the future of music. International Piano Competition in Paris; extensive touring throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe and Japan followed this. Putting together an album is unavoidably a personal endeavor that reflects the taste of compiler. All the compositions selected for this recording were given titles by Liszt and In 1979, because of his growing discontent with the restrictions on artistic refer to extra-musical sources, primarily drawn from poetry. Indeed, the majority of freedom under the Soviet regime, Mr. Feltsman signaled his intention to emigrate his works (and those of many other romantic composers) were inspired by such by applying for an exit visa. In response, he was immediately banned from extra-musical subjects. Because of this, it is easy to label his music as “programmatic”. performing in public and his recordings were suppressed. After eight years of However, such labels can be and often are misleading. The works of Liszt are not virtual artistic exile, he was finally granted permission to leave the Soviet Union. illustrations but purely musical events, coherent wholes that stand on their own, Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Mr. Feltsman was warmly greeted independent of the source of inspiration. As anyone familiar with the creative process can confirm, an initial idea, an inspiration, is not a gradual process, not an invention, at the White House, where he performed his first recital in North America. That but an instantaneous flash of recognition, a non-verbal comprehension and vision of same year, his debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on the American and international scene. 4 NI6212 NI 6212 9 opening motif and the recitative becomes a song, a somber litany. After a descending the whole. Later the artist gives a distinct form to this vision and the initial idea or passage, this theme comes back a half tone lower. The middle section (on the dominant inspiration becomes a work of art. The artist is at the same time both a tool and a creator. to tentative F sharp) creates a tangible impression of a rocking gondola, with the sigh motive in chords on top and a repeated ostinato figure in the bass going up and down: Liebestraum No. 3 in A flat major belongs to a set of three Liebestraume (Dreams of Love) we go back and forth with the gradually increasing swing of the pendulum. The litany published by Liszt in 1850 in two formats, both as piano solos and as songs for soprano motive returns appassionato on octaves and a descending passage follows – this time in and piano. The first and second songs in the set are based on poems by Ludwig Uhland octaves indicated fff. The opening theme returns in full force, but suddenly loses its and the third on a poem by Ferdinand Freiligrath. Each song elaborates a specific kind energy, descending by half tones, as if unable to stop this disintegration. The recitative of love. The first celebrates religious or sanctified love. The second tells of erotic inevitably follows and then stops – nothing is resolved and we are back where we ecstasy: “I was dead from the bliss of love, I lay buried in her arms.” In the third song started. A chromatic sequence of chords in the lower register follows with the sigh the poet describes love as a mode of being, the essence of life: “Oh love, love as long as motive on top: the whole atmosphere could not be darker or more hopeless. The you can…” Liebestraum No. 3 is the most popular of the set and for good reason. One recitative returns depleted of all energy, repeats twice a question-like phrase, and simple melancholy tune appears four times: first and last as an intimate, nostalgic song, aimlessly wanders away in the fog. the second and third times as a more and more passionate and exalted song of love. Before the theme returns for the last time, there is a moving climax, a sensual wave that En rêve (circa 1886) is one of the last sweet musical dreams of Liszt. This work is moves up, down and slowly up again, stops for a moment, as if looking for something transparent, precious, and fragile: it is a fleeting moment, a page from the album of and seamlessly brings us back home to A flat. The whole love story is told in about 5 Liszt’s memory. Thanks to Liszt, this fleeting moment of beauty is still alive. minutes.

© 2013 Vladimir Feltsman Ballade No. 2 in B minor was completed in 1853. In Liszt’s circle it was known that this ballade was inspired by one of the most enduring love stories of all time, the ancient Greek myth of Hero and Leander. Hero was a priestess in the temple of Aphrodite and Recorded by Nimbus Records at Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK pledged to virginity. She lived in a tower on the Greek side of the Dardanelles (or 29/30 March 2012 Hellespont). Leander, a youth of uncommon beauty, lived on the other side of the strait. Photography: Robert Millard, 2012 They met, fell in love and became lovers. Leander visited Hero every night, swimming across the strait to the tower. One stormy night, the lamp lit by Hero to guide him was c & © 2013 Wyastone Estate Ltd blown out. Leander lost his bearings and was drowned. Not wanting to live without www.wyastone.co.uk him, Hero jumped from the tower to her death. This tragic story inspired many: Ovid,

8 NI6212 NI 6212 5 Musaeus and Tasso, Marlowe, Ben Johnson, Shakespeare and Byron to name just a few. used on special occasions, a key of the transcendence of love and spiritual religious The fine contemporary Serbian author Milorad Pavić used it in his novel The Inner Side rapture over death, a key of exultation, a key of immortality. Bénédiction de Dieu is one of the Wind. The second Ballade is one of the archetypical super-charged romantic of the most vivid expressions of spiritual ecstasy in music, a truly inspired and works. It contains many staples of Lisztian piano technique and his highly descriptive inspiring work. style – chromatic scales depicting waves, tremolos and octaves, big chords, arpeggios, contrasts in sonority and, of course, a beautiful love theme (which would reappear in The Berceuse in F sharp major is a part of the Christmas Tree Suite composed in 1875-6. It a different guise as the love theme in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde). It is a story that is a mesmerizing and impressionistic work that might literally lull you into slumber. It unfolds episode by episode. Liszt went through several drafts of this work and ends with an unresolved terza without coming back home to F sharp, giving us a replaced the bombastic original ending with one that is understated and hushed, more preview of Liszt’s later works that have no real tonal center. poetic and personal. Elegia, originally titled Schlummerlied im Grabe (Lullaby in the Grave), was written in Six Consolations (published in 1850) is a cycle that makes one whole out of six “pensées 1874 in memory of Countess Maria Moukhanoff-Kalegris, a patroness of Liszt and poétiques”. The first, second, fifth and sixth Consolations are in E major, and the third Wagner. Liszt apparently valued this intimate and passionate work, as he produced and fourth are in D flat major, establishing a tonic of E for the whole set. These five versions of it: for solo piano; for cello, piano, harp and harmonium; for cello and charming and poetic pieces are often played by young students. They are not difficult piano; for violin and piano; and for piano duet. All five were published simultaneously and provide a good introduction to Liszt’s more complex and technically challenging in 1875. works. The third Consolation is the most popular of the set. La lugubre gondola (second version, circa 1883-5). Liszt wrote the first version of this Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude belongs to Harmonies poétiques et religieuses work in December of 1882 while a guest at Wagner’s house on the Grand Canal in (published in 1853), a set which comprises ten works, most of them substantial in scale. Venice, not long before Wagner died in February of 1883. It is said that Liszt had a Four out of the ten works contain Latin liturgical texts printed in the score in the premonition of Wagner’s death. Whatever the truth of this story, both versions of La manner of a vocal setting. Bénédiction de Dieu is the largest work in the set in scale, lugubre gondola are haunting, elusive and mesmerizing, among the finest of Liszt’s late scope and conception. An infinite succession of ascending landscapes (soundscapes) works. The key word is lugubre – dark, tormented, an interior state closed in on itself. unfolds in which divine and human, spiritual and mundane are fused in one supreme Parallel octaves open this work, as if searching for something; a recitative follows and harmony that contemplates itself. It is a meditation, a tone painting of unrelenting suddenly stops. This pattern is repeated twice, each time a half tone lower. The third inner intensity, sincerity and beauty. Before and after the middle episode Liszt placed time, the recitative does not stop, but goes on for a while, searching for a way out of a unique sign – an angular broken line – that tells us to take a good deal of time before this haunted and desolate place. The left hand joins in with the broken pattern from the going forward. The key is F sharp major, an auspicious key that Liszt (and Wagner) 6 NI6212 NI 6212 7 LISZT BÉNÉDICTION DE DIEU VLADIMIR FELTSMAN - PIANO NI 2571/74NI 6212 version) version) nd FELTSMAN Bénédiction de Dieu de Bénédiction LISZT VLADIMIR 1 2 Consolations Liebesträume, No. 3 in A flat major 3-8 Six B minor in 2 Ballade No. 9 10 solitude la dans de Dieu Bénédiction major F sharp Berceuse in 11 Elegia 12 gondola (2 La lugubre 13 En rêve, nocturne nocturne rêve, 13 En 73.16 time Total playing & © 2013 Wyastone Estate Limited c c Made in the inRecordsMade Nimbus UK by c c www.wyastone.co.uk DDD

LISZT BÉNÉDICTION DE DIEU VLADIMIR FELTSMAN - PIANO NI 2571/74NI 6212