Music : Les introuvables de Cziffra
from: Angel Records
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0077776736624
Format: Box set, Import
Label: Angel Records
Manufacturer: Angel Records
Number Of Discs: 8
Publisher: Angel Records
Release Date: August 12, 2002
Sales Rank: 21279
Studio: Angel Records
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Rating:  -
This "Introuvables" set is indispensable of course for the admirers of Cziffra and of dazzling piano playing in general, but, as many others in the same series, it also proves somewhat frustrating, less for what it includes than for what it omits. It's great to have reissued the complete Liszt recital originally published on LP in 1958 (CD1 tracks 3-9 and CD2 track 1), and this is what should have been done throughout. Instead, with "Campanella" and "Liebeslied" (CD1/1-2), we get only two items from a later Liszt 10-inch LP released in 1961, leaving aside the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody and the rare Nightingale after Alabiev. The Verdi and Auber transcriptions (CD2/2-3) come from a recital of Liszt transcriptions which had also Tannhäuser and Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and the Cziffra transcriptions that occupy tracks 5-11 of CD 2 were part of another LP published in 1958, "Paraphrases, transcriptions & improvisations", of which Khachaturian's Sabre Dance from Gayaneh has been omitted. Cziffra in this repertoire is dazzling. He is the echt-Lisztian. Unbelievable to think that ten human fingers could play so many notes to the second. Even to Chopin (Fantaisie, CD4/4) he brings a wild fury, and to Brahms' Paganini Variations (CD4/5-6, one of his rare forays into this composer) a rhapsodic whimsicality and digital fleetness that likens them to Liszt.
Same frustrations with Beethoven. The three sets of variations (CD4/1-3) and Rondo a capriccio (CD3/7) originally came ... Read More
Rating: -
I bought this set with some trepidation, since I didn't know what to expect from Cziffra's playing of composers other than Liszt. I had only heard him in his mercurially brilliant Lisztian incarnation, and didn't know how he would do with a less flamboyant style.
I have been very pleasantly surprised, especially at his Beethoven and his Schumann. I found that he kept the spontaneity of his Lisztian interpretations, but channelled it chronologically into insightful and spontaneous Beethoven interpretations, while respecting most of the rules and performance practices of the Classic era.
His Schumann was mercurial and spontaneous in a Romantic fashion, also, and - of course - brilliantly digitally played. As to the Liszt, it's par excellence; I've never heard that music played with such spontaneity and
digital fluency.
The sound quality is surprisingly good, altho somewhat uneven. I highly recommend this set to anyone who loves great piano-playing. My favorite pianist is still Richter, but Cziffra takes first prize in his Liszt, and runs a close second with other composers' music.
Rating: -
The eight discs making up this set are invaluable to anyone interested in this extraordinary musician and pianist. His career was cut tragically short, and while it lasted he was most in demand to display his astounding technique in Liszt. He did it because he could. Not being enormously attracted to Liszt I was slow in coming to know Cziffra, but when I did what struck me forcibly was that the picture I had been given of him was seriously misleading. Any suggestion that he was a wilful virtuoso who turned the standard classics into something of his own is 180 degrees wide of the mark, and this selection enables us to hear what his playing was really like in music ranging from Lully and Couperin to the late 19th century, taking in on the way Rameau, Scarlatti, C P E Bach, Beethoven, Hummel, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Liszt is here in the shape of the two concertos, the Totentanz and the Hungarian Fantasy plus some solos, my collection of least favourite romantic concertos is enhanced with his renderings of the Grieg and Tchaikovsky, but relief from these is provided with Franck's symphonic variations. Among the non-Liszt solo pieces we are given a number usually thought to call for exceptional virtuosity, namely Schumann's toccata, Mendelssohn's rondo capriccioso and Brahms's Paganini variations. Balakirev's Islamey is here too, but in a version of Cziffra's own, and so are some of his own virtuoso arrangements including one of the Flight of the Bumblebee as well as four similar ... Read More
Rating: -
I've not a lot to add to Alan Thorpe's review except to say that to be young when Cziffra burst upon the world in 1956 after he left Hungary & started playing in western Europe was sheer intoxication--and it wasn't all Liszt either! Like Richter, who appeared at the same time, he played Schumann in a way that opened up entire new fields of tonal & interpretive possibility. I must say, too, that from the start, I admired his Beethoven--I like lyrically played Beethoven! Why shouldn't Beethoven sing as well as growl? He did write some lovely songs, after all. Cziffra's versions of Op.13, Op.14/2 & Op.26 on this set are very satisfying--I just wish they had managed to include a recording of his version of the Waldstein, too.
Rating: -
Issued in 1991 by EMI France to celebrate Cziffra's 70th birthday this 8 CD boxed set is a bargain. The first CD is all Liszt and contains some of the most spellbinding playing you are ever likely to hear. Fire and brimstone reign as Cziffra tears up the keyboard in the Dante Sonata's demonic moments; surely a whiff of sulphur as he spontaneously combusts during the Mephisto-Valse; the Rhapsodie espagnole and Grand Galop chromatique {see him sweat playing this on Philip's `Great Pianists of the 20th Century video.}. As a contrast, be seduced by his heart-melting rendering of the third Liebestraume; the caprice of the Valse-Impromptu; and have the waters of `Les Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'Este' ever cascaded so onomatopoeically and with such a transcendental variety of touch and nuance. More diablerie follows on disc 2 with transcriptions by Liszt and those {in} famous ones by Cziffra himself. I have never heard a more demonic Gounod/Liszt ` Valse de Faust'; Auber/Liszt `Tarantelle de bravura'; or Tchaikovsky/Liszt Polonaise from `Eugene Onegin'; as for Cziffra's playing of his own transcriptions and paraphrases, especially the Strauss `Tritsch-tratsch polka' and Rimsky-Korsakov `Flight of the Bumble-bee; well, they are in a class of their own. Both Katsaris and Volodos recorded the latter pieces but I'm afraid they cannot compare with Cziffra's sheer electricity and panache. You will now need an ice pack as disc 3 opens with Balakirev's Islamey which starts steadily enough compared ... Read More
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