22 October, 2011 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt (1811–1886), the brilliant virtuoso pianist, genius composer, renowned educator and music critic, one of the brightest stars of the musical Olympus of the 19th century.
As a daring innovator, Liszt stirred up a revolution in both the art of piano playing and composing. Being a classic of the Hungarian national music who imbibed cultural tradition of other countries, Liszt exerted influence upon on the course of European music in general. "If not for Liszt, the fate of new music would have been different," wrote music critic Vladimir Stasov.
The piano remained Liszt's favourite instrument throughout his artistic life. His innovative approach to the instrument showed up in his orchestral and symphonic interpretation. He created a multitude of virtuosic transcriptions of his own works and ones composed by others authors such as operatic numbers and songs by Schumann, symphonies by Beethoven.
"In the span of its seven octaves, [the piano] embraces the range of a whole orchestra, and the ten fingers of a single man suffice to render the harmonies produced created by the concurrence of a hundred musicians," wrote Liszt.
In the field of symphonic music, the composer created a whole new genre – single movement symphonic poem (Tasso, Les préludes, Orpheus, Prometheus and others).
This release dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Liszt's birth includes compositions by Franz Liszt performed by some of the best musicians such as Alexander Slobodyanik (his recording of a Hungarian Rhapsody and Piano Sonata in B minor brought him a Franz Liszt award in Hungary, in 1976), Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Ashkenazi, Gleb Akselrod, Mark Ermler, Lazar Berman, Vladimir Ovchinnikov and Kirill Kondrashin.
