by Alexander Borovsky
Music by Liszt
Etude transcendante in F minor
Sonetto del Petrarca, No. 104 0
Au bord d'une source (By a Spring-side)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9, in E flat
(Carnival at Pest)
Heroide-Elégiaque
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10, in E
One of the greatest composers of nineteenth century piano music was Liszt. This is a fact that has still yet to be generally recognised, for in many quarters his name as a composer is still associated with the showy and rather tawdry pieces he wrote purely for the purpose of dazzling some of the - ignorant audiences of his day. Nevertheless, as the late Bernard van Dieren pointed out in an article on Liszt in the RADIO TIMES, ' In his early years of phenomenal success as a pianist he conceived the natural ambition to create works for his programmes that would show the possibilities his unheard-oftechnique suggested. Not that he heaped up difficulties that would baffle other -players ; he exploited novel effects which opened up a new world of sound. Thus he discovered aesthetic possibilities that had not been dreamt of before '.
The results of these possibilities can be seen in some of the pieces to be heard this afternoon, such as the first three items, all of which represent Liszt at his best.