Search - Franz Liszt, Konstantin Scherbakov :: Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1-9 Transcribed by Liszt [Box Set]

Great price for an amazing box set of Liszt transcriptions

Amy | 07/29/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Liszt's task was enormously difficult to reduce all nine of Beethoven's Symphonies to the level of a single piano and to make this possible for just ten fingers. Absolutely amazing! To make the piano sound as an orchestra would be an illusion and unreachable for any other composer. Not Liszt, he consciously made wonderful, brilliant piano pieces out of Beethoven's Symphonies. Another aspect to mention is Liszt's obvious admiration and respect for the works. He did not change or add anything in the compositions, on the opposite, he just accommodated the symphonic structure within the limitations of the piano, with his unmistakable sense for perfection. To me, that is what Liszt is known for, making the impossible sound like the inevitable.

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Absolutely Stupendous

abcdefg12345 | 10/23/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a 16 year old boy who loves classical music; yes I know that is quite an oddity.



Beethoven's symphonies are some of my favorite pieces of music (particularly 5,6,7, and 9). I am a piano player and when I discovered that these magnificent symphonies were transcribed for piano (by Liszt, my other favorite composer, nonetheless) I was excited that I could play my favorite pieces of music by myself without the help of an entire orchestra. Needless to say, I am quite far from playing the Liszt transcriptions in their entirity, but hearing an amazing pianist such as Scherbakov duplicate the work of a 100 piece orchestra is an absolute inspiration to me. I can not reccomend these recordings enough."

(-) Chronistically Correct Alternative to Romantic Opulence

C. Pontus T. | SE/Asia | 12/05/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Just having lauded the greatness of Liszt in transforming the greatest of music into redefining piano works, and the greatness of Katsaris's relisation of the same, it is interesting to revisit Scherbakov's accomplished, more taut, but far less imposing and memorable cycle. Although the golden era of romantic pianism is not absent, it is mostly kept safely in the background, regrettably giving way to the post-period-performance ideal that has largely ruled the Beethoven Symphonies cycles of the past decade.



Hence, it comes as no surprise that Scherbakov is most successful in the 'lighter' symphonies--especially the Second and, again, as with Katsaris, the Fourth that may be Liszt's single most idiomatic orchestral transcription. However, in the revolutionary romantic odd-numbered symphonies, Scherbakov's results are typically light, clipped and emotionally underwhelming in the HIP manner.



All the same, Scherbakov's technical achievement is very impressive, not far behind that of Katsaris, whereas Naxos's sonics are clearly preferable to Teldec's. Since Liszt's inimitable transcriptions deserve a significantly greater audience, Scherbakov does offer a viable--and indeed chronistically 'correct', as it were--alternative to Katsaris's romantically opulent reference cycle. In several aspects, it is fair to say that Scherbakov's piano cycle largely resembles Vänskä's orchestral ditto.



REFERENCE: Katsaris"