Hyperion Records

The three Csárdás are amongst the most interesting of Liszt’s later works. Less free than the Hungarian Rhapsodies and more specifically Hungarian rather than gypsy in tone, full of spare lines, angular rhythms and the harmonies of the future, they point the way to Bartók. The first of them is a short Allegro which begins as if in A minor, passes to A major and, after much sequential modulation ends quietly but in an unsettled F sharp minor.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1994