Sandrine Erdely-Sayo: Majestic Liszt
Navona Records

On a recording rich in rapturous renditions of Franz Liszt's piano music, none is perhaps as exquisite as Sandrine Erdely-Sayo's treatment of “Ständchen” (1838), the composer's oft-performed transcription from Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang. Aptly titled, the serenade is given a gentle, cantabile treatment that amplifies its tenderness, dignity, and yearning, and the pianist's choices of pacing and dynamics are so remarkable, her lilting performance plays as if she's directly channeling Liszt himself. In fact, the poetic treatment verges on rubato when her expertly calibrated slowing and increasing of the tempo induces swoon. You just might find yourself convinced that no performance of the piece has ever been as note-perfect as this one. Yet while “Ständchen” is a high-point on Majestic Liszt, an abundance of equally memorable moments precedes it.

Erdely-Sayo is certainly well-qualified for the project. After initiating piano studies at the age of four, she went on to win numerous prizes and study at the Paris Superior Conservatory and at Philadelphia's University of the Arts. She's performed in Italy, France, Spain, and South America but also in the United States, where in 2014 she made her Carnegie Hall debut and at Chicago's Preston Bradley Hall in 1999. A composer as well as pianist, Erdely-Sayo has recorded music by Poulenc, Scriabin, Debussy, and Piazolla and been captivated by the music of Liszt (1811-86) since being introduced to it as a young girl. While some of his works accentuate pianistic virtuosity, the material on Majestic Liszt, which spans the years 1838 to 1885, emphasizes the more contemplative and rhapsodic sides of his oeuvre.

Recorded on September 9, 2022 in Houston, Texas, the recording presents a diverse programme that couples two of the composer's better-known pieces, “Ständchen” and Liebesträume No. 3 In A-Flat, S. 541 (“Dreams of love,” pub. 1850), with others as deserving of attention, including the great “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude” (No. 10 of Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, 1851) and six-part Consolations (1849). Majestic Liszt begins, however, with his Romance in E minor (1848), which is so haunting it's odd that it's rarely performed. At a song-length three minutes, this delicate gem is the perfect overture for Erdely-Sayo's programme. The transporting “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude” follows, its eighteen elevating minutes acting on the listener as an irresistible narcotic and portal into the composer's spiritual world. Lyricism permeates this resplendent rumination as it advances through the many stages of its ascendant journey, some dramatic and others supplicating but all beguiling.

That earlier note about virtuosity notwithstanding, “Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots” (No. 2 of Deux légendes, 1863) does call on the pianist's technical command in executing the keyboard-spanning runs that course epically through the grandiose piece like some engulfing storm. Her sensitive use of rubato also comes to the fore in an entrancing rendition of Consolations. At approximately seventeen minutes, it rivals “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude” for length but feels less like an epic travelogue when its six nocturne-like parts are so distinctly defined. The third, marked “Lento placido,” is particularly luminous and the “Quasi adagio” fourth stately, but languor and melodic elegance are abundant throughout. You'll fall in love with Liebesträume all over again when presented with Erdely-Sayo's spellbinding rendering (appropriately too, given that the poem on which it's based, Ferdinand Freilgrath's poem “O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst,” has to do with unconditional love) and will likely respond the same to her hushed treatment of En Rêve, Nocturne, S. 207.

August 2024