Emmanuel Despax: Liszt
Signum Classics

Pianist Emmanuel Despax's personal connection to Franz Liszt (1811-1886) extends through his mentor Ruth Nye, her teacher Claudio Arrau, and Arrau's own teacher Martin Krause, one of Liszt's foremost disciples. As much as this lineage has, in Despax's words, “deeply influenced [his] musical upbringing,” even more important to this terrific double-disc Liszt set are the lessons imparted to him by Nye. While she naturally stressed the importance of technical accuracy and finesse, as crucial in her estimation was interpretation, and it is this more than anything else that makes the recording resonate so powerfully. Placing himself in full service to Liszt, Despax acts as a conduit for the composer's music and someone intent on realizing his expansive vision with the greatest possible integrity.

The release's second half is dominated by what some consider his masterpiece, the Sonata in B minor, but the other four settings—Nuages gris, "Après une lecture du Dante," "Funérailles," and "Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude"—are as resplendent. Whereas previous Signum Classics releases saw the Paris-born and London-based pianist performing concertos by Chopin and, on Après un rêve, pieces by Fauré, Poulenc, Debussy, and Ravel, Liszt now sees him illuminating the great Hungarian composer with his singular artistry. Despax has performed with many a renowned symphony orchestra, but here he's heard in all his solo glory.

The opening “Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata,” which derives from the second of the three books in Liszt's Années de pélerinage (1849), represents the composer's attempt to convey musically the “strange tongues, lamentable cries, words of pain, and tones of anger” of The Divine Comedy. At nineteen minutes, the long-form piece is an adventure-packed odyssey filled with ecstatic gestures, grandiose statements, hushed ruminations, and heavenly chorales. From its dramatic, declamatory beginning and on through the twists and turns of its subsequent episodes, it's never less than gripping and captivates from start to finish.

Two pieces from Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1848-53) follow, the contemplative “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude” and elegiac “Funérailles.” The former's understandably celestial in tone and exudes a deeply affecting serenity and lyrical quality, while the latter's equally powerful in its lament for three friends who were killed in the Hungarian uprising of 1849 and for Chopin, who died in the same year. The gentle glow with which “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude” begins entrances immediately, and the quietly rapturous spell it casts remains in place for the full measure of its twenty poetic minutes. The mood changes drastically with the onset of the dark and lumbering “Funérailles,” with rumblings reverberating from the piano's lower register giving the material a macabre quality. It's during a gently radiant passage that follows, however, where Despax's sensitivity and command of pacing are most evidently shown.

Composed decades later, the sombre, even desolate-sounding Nuages gris (1881) distances itself from the earlier pieces in the way it daringly strains at the edges of tonality and thus anticipates the groundbreaking excursions to come in the early part of the next century. After that crepuscular meditation, the recording returns to the period of the set's other works with the grand, half-hour-long Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178 (1852-3). Its historical reception is worth noting: while it offended many at the time of its creation, including Clara Schumann, who deemed it “meaningless noise” and decried its absence of a “clear harmonic progression,” today's listeners judge it differently, with Despax, for one, calling it “one of the greatest piano sonatas ever composed after Beethoven or Schubert” and praising its craftsmanship. Interestingly, its brooding opening part perpetuates the tone of Nuages gris, but Liszt quickly leaves that behind for energized declamations. Building in scope, the movement sees rippling currents alternating with hymnal chords and lyrical figures, after which the lovely and ever-so-patiently executed “Andante sostenuto” grants Despax another opportunity to indulge his sensitive side. His playing is never more dazzling than towards the epic end of the third movement.

June 2024