Liszt: Sonata in B minor, etc. | Franz Liszt, Arnaldo Cohen

Liszt: Sonata in B minor, etc. | Franz Liszt, Arnaldo Cohen | PIANO MUSIC AS HERACLITEAN FIRE

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Liszt: Sonata in B...

	Liszt: Sonata in B minor, etc. Franz Liszt, Arnaldo Cohen Bis, 2004 average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Fantastic, unwavering drama

This is perhaps Cohen's best disc to date. His drama and virtuosity are unparalleled, and you will certainly find that the interpretation of the pieces herein are clearly a cut above that of some of his predecessors such as Horowitz and Argerich.

Suffice it to say that it has been chosen Gramophone's "Editor's Choice":

GRAMOPHONE
December 2004

BIS Cd-1253
Arnaldo Cohen
Liszt - Funerailles, Spanish Rhapsody, Vallée D'Oberman, Sonata in B minor

This is Liszt-playing on a grand scale, putting Cohen among the greats

By Jeremy Nicholas

With so many piano recitals by the talented and the also-ran finding their
way on to the market these days, this disc comes as a relief and delight.

Arnaldo Cohen's playing blazes with the risk-taking, spontaneity and
urgency of a live concert.

His Funérailles is a truly great performance, perfectly structured, a real
sense of angry desolation, and the central 'cavalry charge' emerging more
logically from its context than I can recall having heard.

In the Rhapsody, Cohen provides the requisite bravura thrills but also does
Liszt the honour of eschewing the vapidity which so many bring to it.

Vallée d'Obermann emerges as an inspired dramatic tone poem, to which Cohen
adds the element of white-hot improvisation; he yields little to Horowitz's
famous RCA recording (nla) in colour and temperament.

The Liszt Sonata, Cohen's second recording, mingles narrative and textual
clarity with a musical maturity and heady virtuosity in the Richter class.

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PIANO MUSIC AS HERACLITEAN FIRE

Sometimes in classical music you make repeated attempts to "get" a well-known piece or composer and are repulsed every time. It's puzzling to repeatedly come away non-plussed from listening to a "great work" -- in this case, the Liszt sonata.

I have assayed this sonata with Pollini, Zimerman, Pletnev, and the much-vaunted Argerich as my guides. Each time, I came away wondering if the deficiency lay in the composer, the performer, or myself.

Then, if you listen to classical music long enough, you will inevitably have the experience of finding that magical recording that unlocks and throws open a door that previously baffled you. For me with Liszt, this is that recording. I finally "get" it.

Why? Because Arnaldo Cohen is *brilliant* here, simply brilliant. The word "coruscating" is possibly overused in reviews of piano recitals, but it absolutely applies here to Cohen's glittering, sparkling, torrential, powerful, poetic, *magical* virtuosity -- this is piano music as pure Heraclitean fire.

What helps me to "get" the music here are Cohen's long narrative lines and grasp of structure. The relation of the parts to the whole finally becomes clear. And within that whole are alternating episodes of breathtaking beauty and demonic fury.

This is one helluva piano disc, and the BIS recording sounds demonstration-worthy to me. This disc also seems to be flying a bit under the radar, despite rave critical reviews -- what a shame, because Cohen scales the heights of sublimity here.

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