Life, Love & Afterlife

Dejan Lazic; on this, his first album for ONYX, pays tribute to a composer and his legacy as a piano virtuoso, organist, improviser, arranger, conductor, teacher, author, philanthropist and traveller. Liszt lived life to the full, and this recital captures that love of life, his genius as a pianist and composer, a traveller with a restless and curious mind. Liszt’s respect for the music of other composers is to be found in his arrangements for piano of orchestral, operatic and other vocal works. From Wagner’s operas to Schubert Lieder via Beethoven Symphonies, his deep love for the music is apparent and such arrangements gave this music a wider audience in both the salons and domestic settings that lives on today.

"Embarking on a recording project like this obviously required a substantial amount of preparation time. But once the date has come it was of a tremendous importance to capture and to honour the spontaneity of Liszt’s versatile, eclectic, and revolutionary genius", writes Dejan in his introduction to the recital, captured at a live performance at Hohenhems, and one further day in studio conditions.

Liszt:
 Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto, S.434 after Verdi's opera
 Confutatis & Lacrymosa
 Csárdás (2), S. 225
 Hungarian Rhapsody, S244 No. 18 in F sharp minor
 Isolde's Liebestod (after Wagner), S447
 Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este (Années de pèlerinage III, S. 163 No. 4)
 Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major)
 Phantasiestück über Motive aus Rienzi (Wagner), S. 439
 Venezia e Napoli (3 pieces), S. 162

"To devise a programme encompassing multiple achivement aspects of the Liszt phenomenon is one thing. To deliver it with the kind of wide-ranging musicianship that's required is another, and Dejan Lazic achieves this remarkably...The recorded sound is seamless and immaculate throughout."
BBC Music Magazine ****