Hyperion Records

The Csárdás obstinée (Liszt’s title, usually employed, gives ‘obstiné’, but, as the Neue Liszt-Ausgabe shows, ‘Csárdás’ is a feminine substantive in French) is of a similar mien—indeed, it takes up where the first Csárdás leaves off with a repeated F sharp before the ostinato accompaniment begins, with its left-hand F sharp major triad contrasted with a falling phrase in the right hand beginning on an A natural. But the piece is really in B minor/major, and before the coda strepitosa there is a marvellous transformation of the theme into B major in repeated octaves.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1994