Concert Chamber, Auckland
Review: Tara Werner
London-based pianist Leslie Howard is one of a rare breed of experts who can easily fill an entire evening with Franz Liszt's music and walk away unscathed.
As he has just completed the Herculean task of recording the composer's complete solo piano music (a total of 94 CDs), Howard must surely dream, breathe and think Liszt.
And with the demands placed on the piano, even the Concert Chamber Steinway developed a definite liszt by the end of this concert. But Howard's brilliance as a consummate interpreter of the composer was clearly stated throughout.
In a full and highly contrasting programme the only thing missing was the famous (or should that be infamous?) Sonata. That alone could have filled a goodly portion of the evening, but Howard's choice of shorter pieces gave plenty of variety.
The sheer technique required for the Scherzo und Marsch and the Fantasie und Fuge uber das thema Bach is akin to going over the top in the trenches, so taxing are these works. The second sounds almost like serialism in its atonality. Equally arduous was one of the composer's many paraphrases, this time based on Gounod's Faust, with the pianist wringing every ounce of drama out of the valse.
In direct contrast were scores of a more gentle and delicate hue, such as the beautiful Troisieme Valse oubliee and the haunting fragment Petite Valse. Both had a masterful touch.
Finally a mixture of Litanies de Marie, elaborations of the now obscure composer Eduard Lassen plus a transcript of Lizst's own oratorio St Elizabeth gave Howard little trouble.
Apart from the overly slurred interpretation of the first work, the Goethe-Festmarsch, this was an impressive performance indeed. And the encores? More Liszt, naturally, once again played with visible affection.
<i>Performance:</i> Purely Piano 1
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