Franz Liszt: Concerto Pathétique For 2 Pianos, Dante Symphony For 2 Pianos – Marco Sollini

Franz Liszt was one of the many Romantic composers who struggled with the problem of the Sonata form, which had been brought to perfection, but also to an impasse, by Beethoven’s genius. For Liszt, the way out of the impasse was to be found in the interaction between music and poetry, as in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The two pieces featuring in this Da Vinci Classics album bear eloquent witness to Liszt’s quest for his own Sonata form. The Concerto pathétique is an arrangement, or rather a reworking, of an earlier piece for solo piano: the concept of the Piano Concerto, with its virtuosity and heroism, is transposed into a solo work. In the 1870s, it was reissued with adaptations and a cadenza written by Hans von Bülow, in what became the reference version; the one performed here, instead is very rarely heard, as it omits Bülow’s cadenza restoring the original one written by Liszt. In his Dante Symphony, Liszt creates a monumental work whereby the anguish of Dante’s Inferno finds rest and peace in the more serene atmosphere of Purgatory, at whose summit one reaches the purity of the Virgin’s canticle, the Magnificat, here sung by a female choir.