Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Hyperion Records CDA68067

Piano Sonata in B minor S178 [34’19] 1 Lento assai [13’20] 2 Andante sostenuto [7’52] 3 Allegro energico [1’55] 4 Allegro energico – Più mosso [6’16] 5 Andante sostenuto [4’56] 6 Sonetto 47 del Petrarca (No 4 of Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année – Italie, S161) [6’24] 7 Sonetto 104 del Petrarca (No 5 of Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année – Italie, S161) [7’35] 8 Sonetto 123 del Petrarca (No 6 of Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année – Italie, S161) [7’58] 9 Après une lecture du Dante ‘Fantasia quasi Sonata’ (No 7 of Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année – Italie, S161) [18’15]

Angela Hewitt’s notes for this important new album describe a teenager’s moment of revelation when she first came to appreciate the epic masterpiece that is the Liszt Piano Sonata. Here we have a heart-felt recording where this palpable sense of wonder is manifest alongside Hewitt’s enthralling technical facility at the keyboard.

The programme is completed by the second half of Liszt’s dazzling second Année de pèlerinage collection: the three Petrarch Sonnets and the noble Dante Sonata, the latter composed as a fund-raiser for the Bonn Beethoven monument in 1839.

‘[A] superbly serious performance … that eschews all personal vanity, all preening mannerism and flamboyance but which, with strength in abundance, locates the still centre at the heart of Liszt’s raging heroics … this is possibly the very finest of Angela Hewitt’s many recordings’ (Gramophone)

‘A precisely articulated vividness that works superbly’ (BBC Music Magazine)