LISZT Malédiction.1 Grande fantasie symphonique on themes from Berlioz’s “Lélio.”1 De profundis.1 Fantasia on a theme from Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens.”1 Polonaise brillante (after Weber).1 Concerto pathétique.1 Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Tunes.1 Wanderer Fantasy (after Schubert).1 Piano Concertos: No. 1;2 No. 2;2 No. 3 (op. posth).3 Totentanz2 • Louis Lortie (pn);1 Nelson Freire (pn);2 Stephen Mayer (pn);3 George Pehlivanian, cond;1 Michel Plasson, cond;2 Tamás Vásáry, cond;3 Hague Residentie O;1 Dresden PO;2 London SO3 • BRILLIANT 93700 (3 CDs: 213:41)

Brilliant’s compilation is largely drawn from a three-CD Chandos set of Liszt’s complete works for piano and orchestra, featuring Louis Lortie hand-in-glove with George Pehlivanian and the Residentie Orchestra, which garnered high praise, as they appeared seriatim (see Fanfare 24:1, 25:1, 25:6). Noted of the volume of Beethoven, Weber, Berlioz, and Schubert fantasies, for instance, “These are exuberant performances, overflowing with arch character and impish brio. Lortie doesn’t merely phrase responsively; he deftly teases and articulates, so that even routine passage-work lifts into scintillant repartee, wittily met by Pehlivanian . . . this is the first time I’ve heard the young Liszt’s hilariously slapdash, formally sprawling Lélio Fantasy actually . . . fantasticated.” This lightweight, brisk, conversationally breezy approach may take one aback initially as lacking in the earnest heft that has accrued to these works over the decades, though the Residentie Orchestra is approximately the size of the forces Liszt wrote for, while the more lissome Lortie/Pehlivanian tilt imparts an unaccustomed and refreshing expressive animation, revealing unsuspected facets in works that had become banefully familiar. When things are going this well, why change?

But for the familiar First and Second Piano Concertos and Totentanz, Brilliant dropped the Lortie performances, substituting similarly playful, but also more mainstream, accounts by Nelson Freire, with Plasson and the Dresden Phil (Fanfare 19:4)—“performance[s] not unlike many other fine, and some great, ones in [their] heroic dash set off in lambent lyricism, but distinguished by consistent effervescence.” And for the recently discovered Piano Concerto No. 3, Brilliant revives Stephen Mayer’s swashbuckling premiere recording with the LSO under Tamás Vásáry (Fanfare 15:2).

Recommendation? Those intrigued by the Lortie/Pehlivanian approach will want to hear what it does to the Piano Concertos—the Chandos set is still available at a generous discount as I write, while Freire’s performances of the First and Second Piano Concertos and Totentanz have just been issued separately (Brilliant 93846). How odd. But for only a few dollars more you can have it all.

FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis