Hyperion Records

This is a fantasy on themes from the Soirées musicales, which actually antedates the transcriptions of the whole set. It will also be clear to the listener that the subtitles tell only part of the story, for other themes from the collection also become involved. True, large portions of this fantasy were able to be taken over into the transcriptions, although not always in the same key, but there is an opportunity for creating a dramatic structure in this piece which presents the Rossini works in a very different light, and invites comparison with Liszt’s early operatic paraphrases.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1992