Liszt - Pièces Tardives

‘My piano is to me what his frigate is to the sailor, his stallion to the Arab; even more than that, for my piano, until now, has been my very self, my speech, my life.’ Franz Liszt

‘There is general agreement that the late music of Liszt resounds with pre-echoes of the musical revolutions that were to shake the early twentieth century. It is true that the bold strokes of harmony and form that inhabit these final works - and the piano is very often the vehicle for such inventions, as it was throughout his career as a virtuoso - are enough to disconcert many listeners.’ Cécile Reynaud

Returning to his Erard piano - which already made a magnificent impression in our CD of duets by Franck, Saint-Saëns, Poulenc, and Infante, played on two Erard instruments (Diapason d’Or 2003) - Jos van Immerseel here emphasises the sonic tension between the instrument the composer knew, and his style of writing.

In this perspective, Liszt appears closer to innovators like Debussy, and becomes once more a pioneer - the composer who, in his Lettres d’un bachelier ès musique, called his life as a musician ‘a long dissonance without a final resolution’.