Liszt - Un Sospiro

Live recital recording 02-20-2007

Trois Études de Concert, S.144 - Un Sospiro

Josh Hillmann, Piano

Bosendorfer Imperial 290

 

quite good recording aldo,

on page 2 and 3. you have the octave passage. I can't really that you play 8th instead of 16th but maybe that's my mistake. on page 6 I can't hear the bass in the left hand. on page 7 the last to 2 bars you need to play the broken chord with the bass of the left hand. you don't play that. Page 9 is what I like accept the passage with only C sharp chord. (hope you understand what I mean) its to much rushed.

I think this is the best recording here at PS. and that you played the 16th very even. Very good job keep on the good work!

 

It's too bad about that bit of audience noise near the beginning. Maybe someone sneezing or dropping their program? But hey, that's what you get with live recordings.

People sometimes dismiss Liszt as overdramatic lounge music. But how can one argue that some of his pieces are truly beautiful, and not simple to play either. Good work!

Nicole Muller

 

Very good again. Parts of it are really beautiful, but others have that glassy brilliance more often found in your recordings. IMO this is a piece which does not call for that. Your explosive pianism also leads more to slips here than would be necessary if you just could take a little more mellow approach. Must be great though to let it rip on a Bosendorfer 290 Imperial...
The recording is up the site.

 

I agree that this is a very good recording and I do like the "glassy brilliance" in this etude as it becomes a bit boring without them. Not possible to know for sure how Liszt himself preferred it but he was a bit like "everything for the audience" so I do believe he took his chances here and there to spice the performance.

 

Absolutely Liszt took chances everywhere to spice up the performance...! lol You know he wouldn't usually give a recital without having 2 pianos on stage because he so frequently broke strings and made the first piano unplayable during the course of the recital... Not saying Un Sospiro would fit the category of pieces that he would tear the piano apart playing, but the style of music requires a bit of wild abandon in choice spots. There is also the notion of conquest in relation to the performer vs. the piano and the audience.

Thanks for all the comments!

 

Didn't play the broken chord? I don't follow you... I didn't leave any notes or chords out, and page numbers are useless unless I have the same edition as you. Where exactly? The other parts of your message don't really make sense to me, could you elaborate?

Edit: Yes I see where you're talking about the broken chord... yes I did play it, and if you listen closely you can hear it. One of the difficulties in playing on the Bosendorfer is balancing the ultra loud bass range possibilities with the ultra crispy top range. Just after those broken chords, you can hear me playing the LH really loudly during the RH arpeggios, then the second time around a couple downbeats later I corrected this and the LH is much softer (probably shoulda been a bit louder).

This is also a major factor of why most of the recordings I've posted to date are perceived as being glassy... it's an issue every pianist must face when playing on an unfamiliar instrument. How can one make the most of this instrument, to exploit the expressive possibilities of the piano while at the same time compensating for any difficulties in playing?

Has anyone else played on an Imperial piano? You should try it sometime! It's very different from the normal Steinway experience, and requires a different type of touch in order to produce a similar sound. It is also more difficult to intonate the voice of the melody, and has a much brighter sound by design. Having several additional notes on the bass end also adds to possible distractions. These difficulties aside, it is pure joy to play once you have spent some time getting used to it! I was able to rehearse on it for 4 hours a few days before the recital, and played on it as well as a Hamburg Steinway, and chose the Imperial because of the ease of playing with clarity in fast etude passages -- which was about 35 minutes of the recital.

Honestly the Steinway (and I LOVE Steinways!) felt like a toy after playing the Bosie...