Franz Liszt: Rhapsodies, Études and Transcriptions
This album is dedicated to Franz Liszt – one of the boldest innovators of Romanticism, the greatest piano virtuoso of his era and possibly of all time, distinguished pedagogue, conductor, writer, and a prominent composer. The piano works are central in Liszt’s legacy. He knew how to exploit the technical and artistic possibilities of the piano to their limits.
The program of this collection consists from three of his major categories of composition. It showcases not only bravura “gypsy style”, but also intimate feelings, poetry, philosophical brooding, and subtle colorations beneath the brilliant virtuosity.
Label: Centaur Records | Catalog:3955 | CD/MP3/Streaming Album, distributed by NAXOS
Available at all the major platforms and retailers: Listen / Download
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D♭ Major, S. 244/6
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in a minor, S. 244/13
Ständchen (“Serenade”), S 560 No.7 (From Schubert: Schwanengesang, D. 957 No. 4)
Erlkönig (“Elf King”), S. 558 No. 4 (Schubert: Op. 1, D. 328)
Die Forelle, S. 554 (Schubert: D. 550)
Études d’exécution transcendante, S. 139: No. 9 in A♭ Major “Ricordanza”
and No. 4 in D minor, “Mazeppa”
The album had received the following awards and recognition
Best Classical Recording – One Earth Music Awards
Best Classical Album – Clouzine International Music Awards
Charting in Top 10 Albums in 2022 September–December 2022, Top 20 – January-March 2023 at One World Music Radio
Best Classical Album – Akademia Music Awards
The Want List 2022 – Fanfare Magazine
Best Classical Recording- Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D♭ Major – The Indie Music Channel
Best Classical Recording – Schubert/Liszt: “Die Forelle” – Radio Music Awards 2023- The Indie Music Channel
2 Silver medals, Outstanding Achievement – Global Music Awards
Best Classical Album – Akademia Music Awards
Best Classical Album, Gold Winner – One Earth Awards
2 Platinum awards: Best Female Artist/Best Classical Music and 2 Gold Awards: Best Instrumental Music and Best Performance – LIT International Talent Awards
Review and Interview in the Fanfare Magazine
All 4 reviews of this album in the November-December issue of the Fanfare Magazine
Want List of 2022 in the Fanfare Magazine
NPR WLPR-FM “Art on the Air” – Interview and performance
The Ark of Music – Review and Interview
The Whole Note — Review (November – December 2022, Volume 28, issue 2, P. 53-54)
OneWorldMusic Radio – Review and 3 Album Shows
Lite Lounge with Dimitri K. – Album show and Interview – starts at 29:34
“Chatting with Nat” – Interview and performance
“Mixing It” with Nicki Kris – Interview and performance
Live Video Performances
Schubert-Liszt: “Ständchen” (Serenade) – concert in New York
Transcendental Etude “Ricordanza”– concert via Zoom
Transcendental Etude “Mazeppa” – concert in New York
Transcendental Etude “Mazeppa” – concert at NJIT
Schubert-Liszt: “Ständchen” (Serenade) – concert via Zoom
REVIEWS (Excerpts)
“A lusty, compelling rendition… Agranovich sports a touch that, in its detached form, inserts an antique, transparent texture into the emergent sound, as if indeed we were hearing the music played in tavern or Beidermeier salon. The lyric repeats and swells, aching with heartbreak, the piano easily substituting for a guitar or ennobled lute.”
“The music no less conveys a dramatic, nostalgic narrative that becomes liquid in its cascades, runs, and trills. The shifts in metric pulse, the sudden impulses, agitato, require a mastery of Liszt’s pedal that Agranovich demonstrates with a finesse that might invoke comparisons with other bearers of the Liszt flame. Bolet, Arrau, and Cziffra.”
-Gary Lemco, Fanfare Magazine
***
“Now here is a disc I would listen to over and over again, never wanting it to end. An award-winning very talented Ukrainian-American pianist, Sophia Agranovich plays Liszt as it should be played, totally imbued in Romantic spirit and with “interpretation daring to be different” and “superior musicianship” (American Record Guide). Funny, I remember British critics around the 50s who poo-pooed Liszt, held him second rate and overtly emotional. They should eat their words when they hear this performance. This is her tenth release and entirely devoted to Liszt showing the many sides of the composer’s genius and all devilishly difficult pieces.”
“…Unique, opulent and rewarding new issue.”
-Janos Gardonyi, The Whole Note
***
“A presentation that is simply breath-taking and sublimely intelligent.”
“Agranovich creates a mood so mysterious and deep that one just literally has to follow her bright burning lights of a passionate performance.”
“Agranovich pulls off a masterful accomplishment and a simply majestic concluding achievement, one with great speed and endurance… It is a formidable collection of great works performed by an artist who has a sublime technical skill, but also the creative and artistic intelligence, one to bring to the world a recital of such class and colour, that it opens the world of classical music up and makes it accessible to anyone.”
-Steve Sheppard, One World Music Radio
***
“As she has demonstrated in the past, Sophia Agranovich is fully possessed of the technical equipment to surmount Liszt’s most extreme demands…’Unbeatably treacherous,’ one contributor called it, the passages in octaves apparently a major factor. You wouldn’t know it listening to Agranovich play the piece, which comes off not only with absolute executional assurance, but with countless tonal colorations and imaginative interpretive touches that reveal an undeniable truth about Agranovich’s artistry. The struggle to play the notes has been left far behind. Concerns over fingering, pedaling, and other physical aspects of performance no longer exist. Agranovich is free to explore Liszt’s muse and to go wherever the music’s flights of fancy take her.”
“Ständchen, especially, comes off with touching beauty, This is playing quite stunning in its visceral impact, but more than that, the impression emerges early and continuously throughout the program that Agranovich hears in this music private intimacies and poetic delicacies that exist beneath the glitzy surfaces, and she brings them to the fore in ways that reveal a sensitive, vulnerable side of Liszt we don’t often hear in his bravura works.”
“Anyone who cannot resist piano playing of thrilling virtuosity will love this album. But beyond that, anyone who suspects that deep down Liszt was more than the sum of his keyboard wizardry and legerdemain will have their suspicions confirmed by Agranovich’s probing and profoundly moving performances of his music.”
-Jerry Dubins, Fanfare Magazine
***
“This is magnificent, deeply emotional and performed with scintillating virtuosity of the highest order. You get a laurel wreath for this one. Bravissima.”
-Seymour Bernstein, pianist, composer, New York University Professor
***
“Electric Performance of Liszt…she plays with the kind of coiled energy of a loaded spring. That energy is tension, really, an engagement with the instrument that seems to give off sparks every time she presses the keys.”
“Featuring repertoire that is noted for its complexity and difficulty, Agranovich offers a performance that is informed, nuanced, and so expressive that I was instantly hooked both on Liszt and Agranovich. Her sound is warm, bright, and fluid. When she plays, Agranovich is in complete control of the sound that comes from the instrument. The full dimension of her sound is the result of her precise movement, volume, and tone, which is so precise that the ringing sound of the held notes easily sounds more like a bow on a stringed instrument than a hammer on a string in a wooden box. While navigating dramatic changes in tempo and dynamics, Agranovich also brilliantly articulates Liszt’s extremely demanding finger work.”
-Jacqueline Kharouf, Fanfare Magazine
***
“Liszt would most certainly be proud of Sophia Agranovich’s efforts here. Her playing is faultless throughout a record that features some of the most complex arrangements ever written for the piano. Her resonance with the music of Liszt is remarkable and this will no doubt be recognized as one of the definitive presentations of his work. This is a compulsory listen for fans of Liszt and lovers of the piano in general.” Full review
-The Ark of Music
***
“Jaw-dropping virtuosity… a performance of sparkling magic.”
“She teases rhythms beautifully, in a way that is completely congruent with Liszt style: her rubato is decidedly composer-specific, as it should be. There is abandon, here, too, with spirit very much to the fore… Agranovich captures the bittersweet serenity of “Ständchen” from Schwanengesang to perfection. and she does make the Erlkönig’s lines of seduction to the child most beautiful and appealing. Agranovich’s way with the Schubert/Liszt Forelle is individual and highly beautiful: her evenness in the flourished prior to the appearance of the universally-known theme are works of art themselves. This particular transcription (Liszt’s second) includes an extended introduction/cadenza. Agranovich is utterly charming in this performance: she finds the ideal between Schubert’s and Liszt’s musical languages: the gestures could only be Liszt, the underlying music could only be Schubert…”
“The booklet notes, by the pianist, are excellent and detailed.”
“A remarkable performance. A most rewarding disc by a pianist of great sensitivity and intellect.”
-Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine
***
“Ms Agranovich’s artistry is dazzling as she easily transitions from bravura passages to passages of fragile beauty and delicate tenderness – truly a breathtaking performance! Making the project even more personal, Ms Agranovich also wrote all of the liner notes which explain the history of each piece as well as its structure and her approach to it – very enlightening!”
“From light-hearted and dance-like to funereal, Ms Agranovich’s expressive virtuosity brings the rhapsody to life… The broad emotional range from deep melancholy to impassioned to joyful and dancelike is a musical thrill-ride!”
‘Soulful and very beautiful… an amazing performance!” “Ms Agranovich imbues it with grace and elegance… Another jaw-dropping performance!.. If you want to hear a virtuoso performance that overflows with heart and soul, you’re going to love this one!”
–Kathy Parsons, Mainly Piano
Album Booklet and Liner Notes by Sophia Agranovich