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Track(s) taken from CDA66346

L'idée fixe – Andante amoroso d'après une mélodie de Berlioz, S395

composer
1846
composer

Leslie Howard (piano)
Recording details: January 1989
St Peter's Church, Petersham, United Kingdom
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Tryggvi Tryggvason
Release date: February 1990
Total duration: 6 minutes 28 seconds

Cover artwork: King Lear weeping over the dead body of Cordelia (1788). James Barry (1741-1806)
 

Reviews

‘I can wholly recommend this release to lovers of Liszt since it presents much music that is otherwise unavailable’ (Gramophone)
Liszt’s instant enthusiasm upon first encountering the music of Berlioz was immediately turned to practical account and, indeed, some of Liszt’s transcriptions, made often to bring the music to audiences whose local orchestras just couldn’t play it, were published before the original scores. Aside from the operatic transcription from Benvenuto Cellini, the Symphonie fantastique and the Harold en Italie (with viola), these works represent all the Berlioz pieces which Liszt transcribed or, in the case of the Idée fixe, composed. Perhaps fearing that the melody which holds together the Symphonie fantastique was too long for the memory of the average music lover, Liszt made a delectable nocturne from it—a sort of propaganda piece—but very beautiful in its own right. (It is also incorrectly listed in The New Grove under its subtitle as an original Liszt piece! Some sources list a version from 1833, but it seems that the 1846 piece, published by 1847 at the latest, is the first version. A later, simplified version was made as an introduction to the independently-issued March au Supplice from the Symphonie fantastique.)

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1989

Other albums featuring this work

Liszt: Complete Piano Music
CDS44501/9899CDs Boxed set + book (at a special price) — Download only
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