LISZT: PIANO WORKS - PASCAL ROGE, JEAN-RODOLPHE KARS (2 CDS)

Two pupils of the great Julius Katchen are featured in the piano music of Liszt on this 2CD set. Pascal Rogé was eighteen years old when he recorded the Liszt Piano Sonata, Mazeppa, Vallée d’Obermann and the third Liebestraum in London in December, 1969. It was during the 1967 International Competition Georges Enesco that Rogé was first discovered. He was sixteen, the only Frenchman to reach the finals, and he won a prize even though he was the youngest competitor. In Paris, where he was unanimously awarded First Prize for the Piano at the Conservatoire (in Lucette Descaves’s class) when he gave his first recital, Le Figaro wrote: ‘… Here is an exceptional personality and already much more than a hope: a gold mine’. The International Herald Tribune praised him with these words: ‘… his remarkable technical prowess, but also style and ability to draw his audience into his line of focus and hold it there. Such a quality is the sign of a true artist.’ Twelve years later, in 1980, he made another Liszt recording for Decca, this time of the Italian volume of Années de Pèlerinage. Both recordings are issued as part of this 2CD set, completed with Liszt recordings of both flamboyant pieces – the transcendental study Wilde Jagd, the second Legend ‘St. Francis of Paul walking on the waves’ – as well as the intimate, almost experimental late works. Born in Calcutta, India, of Viennese-Jewish parents, raised in considerable poverty, Jean-Rodolphe Kars was much admired in pianistic circles. Although his upbringing had been that of a secular Jew, he converted, in 1976, to Catholicism and was baptised in 1977. Mysteriously, in 1981, he put an end to his career as a pianist, entering the priesthood in 1986. All these recordings appear internationally on Decca CD for the first time.

the compelling centre of this feast is the playing of the 18-year-old Pascal Roge. Mature, lyrical, symphonic and pianistically profound, his Sonata is a marvel. --BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, 2ème année, Italie (7 pieces), S. 161 (ROGE)
Liszt: Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 7) (ROGE)
Liszt: Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 3) (ROGE)
Liszt: Il penseroso (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 2)
Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 5) (ROGE)
Liszt: Sonetto 123 del Petrarca (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 6) (ROGE)
Liszt: Sonetto 47 del Petrarca (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 4) (ROGE)
Liszt: Sposalizio (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 1) (ROGE)
Liszt: La Lugubre Gondola I, S200 No. 1 (KARS)
Liszt: Legende S.175 No. 2, St. Francis of Paola walking on the waves (KARS)
Liszt: Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major) (ROGE)
Liszt: Nuages gris, S199 (KARS)
Liszt: Piano Piece in A flat major (No. 2 from Fünf Klavierstücke), S192/2 (1865) (KARS)
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S178 (ROGE)
Liszt: Transcendental Study, S139 No. 4 'Mazeppa' (ROGE)
Liszt: Transcendental Study, S139 No. 8 'Wilde Jagd' (KARS)
Liszt: Vallée d'Obermann (Années de pèlerinage I, S. 160 No. 6) (ROGE)