Following her earlier and superb recording celebrating her triumph in the 2010 Chopin International Competition, Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva turns to Liszt with a mesmerizing sense of contrast and difference. Here, in what she describes as Liszt's 'tramsformation' his 'Metanoia' from virtuoso to visionary(for Alfred Brendel from 'l'exuberance de coeur' to l'amertume de coeur'), she stresses with overwhelming mastery and eloquence the far-reaching prophetic nature of music incomprehensible to Liszt's contemporaries(it was dismissed as the product of senility). The many titles tell their own desolating story as Liszt lived on, scorned and increasingly isolated, his former virtuoso glory a distant and scarcely less comfortable and ambiguous memory. 'La lugubre gondola'(second version), 'Nuages gris,' Csardas macabre,' and 'Unstern-Sinistre'(literally, 'unstarred' or 'ill-fated'). Even when not so entitled, in the skittering diablery of the 'Bagatelle sans tonalite' and in the Seventeenth Hungarian Rhapsody, (one of four, austere alternatives to former elaboration and flamboyance) a dark night of the soul remains.
Cradling these reflections of Liszt's final years, Avdeev gives us the B minor Sonata-- greatest of all Liszt's keyboard works and a landmark in the history of music-- and the second of the two Saint Francis Legends. Even then, compared with the many recordings of the Sonata, Avdeeva's shining musical integrity makes comparisons irrelevant. This is undoubtedly among the most committed and fervent performances on disc whether in storm or lyricism and most of all in the valedictory coda, here alive with glassy sighs and threats.
Yet if the overall mood is deeply unsettling there is light at the end of the tunnel. Saint Francis of Paola ends his perilous and miraculous journey across the Straights of Messina with a radiant prayer to God for his survival and safety, and from Avdeev with a magnificent sense of uplift and reassurance.
But then, again, the emphasis is on the late rather than earlier Liszt and here, and arguably most of all, Avdeeva claims, indeed commands our attention. Impossible to single out any one of her examples, yet if forced I would focus on the 'Csardas macabre'(one of three Csardas). Played in a slightly different edition to the one used by, say, Alfred Brendel and a far cry from Louis Kentner's ingenious elaboration(which for all its skill surely denies Liszt his essential austerity) the performance is of a riveting intensity, blazing into a coda of elemental defiance and fury.
This is one of the most remarkable and profoundly moving records to have come my way for many years. Given in collaboration with the Tippet Piano Art Centre, Pentatone's excellent sound and lavish presentation include an essay by the pianist herself.
Bryce Morrison