Ok, my thoughts on Liszt CDs continued...

Having listened to all of LH's recordings in the car on the way to work (it took weeks!) I've now moved onto my non-LH Liszt recordings.  I've been impressed with Cziffra for years - he seems to have an amazing facility for playing terribly difficult music (the Grande Tarantelle di Bravoure on Auber for example) but his early recordings are let down by poor sound due to their age.  His Hungarian Rhapsodies are the best around (not that I've heard Pizzaros cheap set, yet).  I also have a CFS Classic Silver Double CD of Bernard d'Ascoli & Craig Sheppard playing various original works and paraphrases.  It's very good and includes the terribly difficult Tannahuser Overture transcription (which is one of LH's few recordings I can't warm to).  It's a shame that there are some bars missing from the Liebestod transcription on this disc, I don't know why though but it spoils it for me.  Kemil Gekic's Naxos Volume 7 includes the Soirees Musicales and the William Tell Overture transcription - LH is better in the Soirees (as he is more even) and Gekic is better in the Overture because it is breathtakingly virtuosic!  I recommend (with one small reservation), the Naxos series volume 1 - Arnaldo Cohen is amazing and has the correct temprament for the late pieces as well.  I do have a small niggle though - he cuts a few bars from the Dance Macabre transcription (after Saint-Saens) which LH leaves in so he wins in that one!  I recently bought Alfredo Perl's Transcendental etudes - he really is very good, it's probably at the moment my favourite version and it was cheap as well.  Marc-Andre Hamelin's Liszt discs are superb - especially the Schubert transcriptions and the Paganini etudes one - the Rittermarsche is one of my favourite of all transcriptions by Liszt - it really is amazing.  Idil Biret recorded the Liszt transcription of the Symphonie Fantastique for Naxos (seperate from the series) but her recording sounds uneven and, although her technique is incredible, she is less uniform that LH (Hyperion, volume 10).  In certain places it sounds like she is forcing the music and it is spolit for me by doing that.
That's all for now, time to go and play the piano myself...

I quite like Biret's SF transcription, but I think I know what you mean by it being forced; I'll have to have a proper listen to Howard's one.  (I think that there is nothing else like the SF transcription in Liszt's work that I have heard so far).

In the end, Jonathan, I've ordered four of the Naxos discs to sample the series: Vol.1 Cohen - Totentanz, Danse macabre etc; Vol.7 Gekic in Rossini transcriptions; Vol.24 Andaloro in the Mephisto waltzes and Vol.25 Dossin in the Verdi transcriptions.
Spent a lot of the morning listening to the Cziffra Transcendental Studies and Hungarian Rhapsodies - a real 'wow' factor there, especially in Mazeppa.

Jonathan - any thoughts on France Clidat? She was my introduction to Liszt 30 years ago and I loved many of her recordings.

I think the sheer comprehensiveness (?) of Howard's series makes it indispensible, although I find a lot of the more familiar works get a bit of a routine performance - Annees de pelerinage comes to mind as a recent listen!

Is there enough yet to make a third disc of New Discoveries, then?

Well, I’ve had a very enjoyable week listening to the Naxos CDs. I particularly (and predictably) enjoyed the Verdi transcriptions, especially the Réminiscences de Simon Boccanegra, which reminds the listener what beautiful melodies there are in this opera. The William Tell transcription, played by Kemal Gekić, is quite something, and it was good to hear all four Mephisto Waltzes, which must be devilishly difficult to play!
I was very impressed with Arnaldo Cohen’s playing on Volume 1 (I’ve ordered his recording of the concertos on BIS). I can imagine there will be more from this Naxos series heading my way soon!

Ok, now I really have fallen off my chair.

Naxos have recorded the 2 piano version of the Dante Symphony - to my knowledge, this is the first recording.  Their Liszt series is getting more interesting (here's shoping they'll include all of the other 2 piano and piano 4 hands works that I've been mentioning on messageboards for years!)  They've coupled it with a 2 piano arrangement of the Dante Sonata which should also be interesting.  I'll post my opinions once I have the disc...another preorder from MDT, along with Liszt's English desciple, Constance Bache's, Piano Concerto 

The next Naxos Liszt CD may well interest you as well IGI - it's Donizetti transcriptions, including the horrificly difficult Lucretzia Borgia remeniscences:

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_November07/8570137.htm

Mine will go on pre-order once the postmen have stopped striking!   

I have Cziffra playing Liszt Chromatic galop and it is fantastic, briliant. I have vidio of him playing some Rapsodies.
I didn't hear his Liszt concerto, but I am sure it is good.