Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Les Préludes – symphonic poem (1849-53) [14:26] ą
Piano Concerto No.1 in E flat major [17:52] ˛
Piano Concerto No.2 in A major [19:07] ˛
Hungaria – symphonic poem (1854) [14:45] ł
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Leopold Ludwig ą
Andor Földes (piano)/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Leopold Ludwig ˛
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Ferdinand Leitner ł
rec. November 1951 (Préludes); October 1952 (Hungaria); February 1953 (Concertos)
GUILD GHCD2381 [66:20] 
There’s an unexpected Czech leitmotif to this disc, though you wouldn’t necessarily
think so from the line-up. What could be more Austro-Hungarian-Germanic than
this fare, and these performers? Well, dig a bit and you find all the confusions,
conflations, doubleness, and geo-political shenanigans that mark out this
kind of territory. Echt-German conductor Leopold Ludwig, famed for his collaboration
on disc with Emil Gilels in Beethoven concertos amongst much else, was actually
born in Ostrava in 1908, when the city – now one of the most disgustingly
polluted in Europe – was part of the Dual Monarchy. And the Bamberg Symphony,
founded in 1946, was composed of a healthy number of members from the so-called
‘German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague’, who had been kicked out of Czechoslovakia
at the end of the War.
Al these DG recordings date from 1951-53, and represent the company’s efforts
on behalf of Liszt’s orchestral music. Their reappearance now, in the bicentenary
year of his birth, is very welcome. Les Préludes is in the highly competent
hands of Ludwig and the Berlin Philharmonic. The conductor had just taken
over duties in Hamburg when DG drafted him in to direct what was then still
very much Furtwängler’s orchestra, and he secures outstanding playing
– theatrical, powerful exciting but not grandiloquent. In February 1953 he
returned with Andor Földes to record both Piano Concertos. The sessions lasted
three days. Földes is known principally for his Bartók. Long ago I reviewed
a disc of…which others highly praise but which I found rather uninspired.
Here he is on far firmer footing, and sounds energised, commanding and technically
unruffled throughout. In fact he’s a frequently scintillating soloist, cannily
supported by Ludwig, rhythmically vital, full of clever rubati. The orchestra
plays equally vitally, and the principal cello shines in the central section
of the A major.
As a pendant, and one that balances the opening Les Préludes, we have
the Bamberg performance, under Ferdinand Leitner, of Hungaria, a slightly
sprawling symphonic poem that nevertheless in places uncannily prefigures
Mahler. It ends the disc with fine symmetry – two symphonic poems framing
the two piano concertos. The notes are helpful and the sound good, though
perhaps the transfers are a mite congested.
Jonathan Woolf
Energised, commanding and technically unruffled.