LISZT
Ten Hungarian
Rhapsodies
Georges Cziffra
(piano)
Recorded 1972-75
EMI Great Recordings of
the Century CDM 5 67554 2
[75.57]
Crotchet
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Cziffra's one and only recital appearance in London during the 1960s caused
a furore. His Chopin was hotly disputed, his dazzling playing of Liszt took
the public by storm, and if you listen to this disc you will hear why. His
technique is phenomenal, octaves tossed off with power and ease, while his
passage work carves a scorched earth policy up and down the keyboard. As
a fellow Hungarian, and with plenty of gypsy blood in his veins, Cziffra's
response to Liszt's Rhapsodies also manages to get beyond pyrotechnics to
the folk-heart of this idiosyncratic style. This is not music to look down
upon, neither should it be the territory of pianistic peacocks, for it is
serious music of the highest order requiring an improvisatory feel for the
ebb and flow of the quintessential rubato required. Every now and again,
he launches an attack of fortissimo which has the assaulting effect on one's
ears of an exploding grenade. His pianistic flourishes stretch every sinew,
as much of the listener as of Cziffra himself we get carried along, yet his
playing is also expressively tender where it needs to be. In his hands the
piano sounds like an orchestra, and these interpretations could well be the
nearest we ever get to Liszt's own playing. Cziffra (1921-1994) had a chequered
career that ended with him as a reclusive figure after the tragic death of
his conductor son. After escaping Soviet-dominated Hungary in 1956 he settled
in Paris, where these recordings were made over several sessions during a
three-year period at the Salle Wagram. As one reviewer wrote of him when
he took Western Europe by storm at the time, 'he combines the precision of
a metronome with the electrical discharge of a thunderstorm'. On the evidence
of this disc one can well understand the choice of words.
Christopher Fifield
Performance
Sound
