Decca to Release Nelson Freire's New Recording of Liszt

2011 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of pianist-composer Franz Liszt, and Nelson Freire now offers his own recording in tribute. This very personal selection of works spans Liszt's highly varied musical styles and also highlights a few of his lesser-known compositions. Grammy®-nominated pianist Nelson Freire continues his exclusive association with Decca with Liszt: Harmonies du Soir, available May 17, 2011.

Liszt's reputation has fluctuated wildly (unlike that of his contemporaries such as Chopin and Schumann), and it is only in relatively recent times that his true stature has been fully realized. Though he was possibly the greatest and certainly the most charismatic of pianists, his compositions embraced many areas of music. But if his symphonic poems, Masses, oratorios and songs are often musically revolutionary, his piano music takes precedence both for its quantity and its quality. There was a time when Liszt was considered mostly a flashy showman (and indeed, audiences came to see if he had more than ten fingers), but today the situation could hardly be more different. As Nelson Freire's wide-ranging program shows, Liszt was a true master of an ever-varying style and his works point to the future of music in numerous ways.

With the Valse oubliée (the first and most popular of four), Freire gives us a single excursion into Liszt's late manner and music of an elusive, bitter-sweet nostalgia expressed with a novel economy. Returning to Liszt's earlier, more picturesque brilliance, Waldesrauschen, the first of two concert études dating from 1862-63, may lack the ambivalent tonality of the Valse oubliée which was to make of Liszt a prophet of the twentieth century, but its luminous, shimmering texture already points the way to works such as "Ondine" from Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit.

Liszt's six Consolations, which were completed in 1850, take their title from poems by Sainte-Beuve dedicated to Victor Hugo. Sometimes considered "consolations" for those unable to cope with Liszt's more difficult pages, they are nonetheless demanding in other, more lyrical and serene ways. The third Consolation is very much for those who delight in Liszt's most tactful poetry; one of his many unofficial tributes to Chopin, this meditation on the opening of the D flat Nocturne, op. 27 no. 2 is understandably among Liszt's most popular compositions.

"Harmonies du soir," which lends its name to the title of this album, is the eleventh and most opulent of Liszt's formidably entitled Études d'exécution transcendante. As its title declares, "Harmonies du soir" is a study in impressionism and many of its massive chord sequences are a prophecy of things to come. Messiaen may have made little mention of Liszt, but the influence is unmistakable.

Born in Boa Esperança, Brazil, Nelson Freire began piano lessons at the age of three with Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, who had worked with a pupil of Liszt. In 1957, after winning a grant at the Rio de Janeiro International Piano Competition with Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto, he went to Vienna to study with Bruno Seidlhofer, teacher of Friedrich Gulda. Seven years later he won the Dinu Lipatti Medal in London and first prize at the International Vianna da Motta Competition in Lisbon.

Freire has been an exclusive Decca artist since 2001, thus far recording Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Debussy, as well as the two Brahms Concertos with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, which was hailed by Gramophone as "the Brahms piano concerto set we've been waiting for" and has earned international prizes including the 2007 Classic FM Gramophone Award as "Record of the Year" and "Winner of the Concerto Category", Diapason d'or, Grand Prix de l'Aca­démie Charles Cros and Choc du Monde de la musique as well as a Grammy® nomination. In March 2007, Nelson Freire was appointed a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. 2010 saw the release of his Grammy®-nominated Chopin Nocturnes.

Tracklisting

1. Waldesrauschen
Zwei Konzertetüden, S. 145 no. 1

2. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca
Années de pèlerinage, Deuxième année: Italie, S. 161 no. 5

3. Valse oubliée in F sharp major, S. 215 no. 1

4. Ballade no. 2 in B minor, S. 171

5. Au lac de Wallenstadt
Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse, S. 160 no. 2

6. Hungarian Rhapsody no. 3 in B flat major, S. 244 no. 3

Consolations, S. 172
7. I. Andante con moto
8. II. Poco più mosso
9. III. Lento placido
10. IV. Quasi adagio
11. V. Andantino
12. VI. Allegretto sempre cantabile

13. Harmonies du soir
Douze Études d'exécution transcendante, S. 139 no. 11
Andantino

www.DeccaClassics.com

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