Liszt: Two Legends, (Jando, Pierdomenico)

This is how impressionism began. (Well, perhaps even earlier, with Harmonies du Soir and Chasse-Neige, but the basic point stands.) The Two Legends, written in 1863, represent unprecedented attempts at musical naturalism and religious expression – Liszt’s total mastery of pianistic colour and texture only rarely found vehicles of expression as pure as these. The first work narrates the tale of St Francis of Assisi stopping along his travels to deliver a sermon to the first in the trees; as he speaks, the come down and surround him until he blesses them. The second depicts St Francis of Paola, having been denied use of the ferry to cross the Straits of Messina, laying his cloak over the waters and crossing the straits on it. Both pieces are works of genius: the first adopts an unusual call-and-response structure and spins out a plethora of shimmering ornithological effects; it was by far the most sophisticated imagistic treatment of birds in music when it was written (you have to wait for Messiaen, really, to better it, or maybe Ravel’s Oiseaux Tristes, although the listless, depressed birds in the latter seem hard to compare to this). The second has one of the most beautiful themes ever written (somehow Liszt, when in his religious mode, came up with some fantastic melodies: see also Benediction of God in Solitude), underpinned by rippling harmonies and some ingenious deployment of the piano’s deep bass register. The surging waters eventually build up into a storm that nearly overwhelms the theme, until it reasserts itself in massive and glorious fashion. Both performances here feature some truly exalted sound-painting. Jando is magisterial, with the ability to build up with perfect control into some huge soundscapes (see the long buildup from 11:23 or 18:16 in St Francis of Assisi, for instance). Striking textures abound: see the crystalline 2:09, the eerie LH legato at 11:57, the ragged clusters at 13:54, or the dissonance which leaps out at 17:19. Pierdomenico’s stunning recording is altogether more intimate, and perhaps of all the Liszt keyboard recordings I have comes closest to evoking real spiritual feeling in the manner of late Beethoven. There are too many nice touches to count: the smoky disintegration of the chromatic line starting from 20:52; the careful delineation of inner voices at 29:54; the microscopic pulling-back at 31:45, the resplendent refraction of the right hand through the left at 34:06. (Notes on structure in the comments section)