LISZT: The complete music for solo piano, Vol. 43, Deuxième Année de Pèlerinage – Leslie Howard Hyperion

Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année – Italie S161[51’18]1
Sposalizio[7’25]2
Il penseroso[5’16]3
Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa[2’42]4
Sonetto 47 del Petrarca[5’53]5
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca[5’55]6
Sonetto 123 del Petrarca[6’31]7
Après une lecture du Dante ‘Fantasia quasi Sonata'[17’36]Venezia e Napoli – Supplement aux Années de Pèlerinage seconde volume S162[18’56]8
Gondoliera[6’06]9
Canzone[3’55]10
Tarantella[8’55]11
Au bord d’une source S160/4bis[4’56]

This, the forty-third volume (and sixty-fifth disc) in Leslie Howard’s Liszt encyclopaedia, includes the Second Book of the composer’s Années de Pèlerinage, a work which derives its considerable inspiration from the art and literature of Italy. Here we find the final versions of the three Petrarch Sonnets and the famous Dante Sonata.

Alongside these works we have Venezia e Napoli, an ingenious set of encore pieces, and the intriguing coda to Au bord d’une source (from the Swiss volume of the Années) which Liszt penned for the young Italian composer/pianist Giovanni Sgambati in 1863.

All of the music on this album is also available as part of the specially priced box set Liszt: Complete Piano Music: ‘Almost any way you choose to look at it, this is a staggering achievement … the grand scope of this project gives us the chance, as listeners, to experience the almost incomprehensible breadth and depth of Liszt’s imagination’ (International Record Review).