Hyperion Records

Somewhat apart from other pieces are the gentle setting of a Russian folksong, ‘Farewell’ (no doubt supplied to Liszt by the dedicatee, his pupil Aleksandr Ziloti) and the piano piece derived from one of Liszt’s recitations for speaker and piano, The Blind Singer, based on a poem by Alexey Tolstoy and much tightened up in the process of eliminating the text (thirty verses of it)—a ballad of hunting Boyars and the counsels of a blind poet’s song.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1991