Haochen Zhang: Franz Liszt - Transcendental Études
BIS

Initiated in 1826 when Franz Liszt (1811-86) was but fifteen years old, Transcendental Études (Études d'exécution transcendante) was intended to feature forty-eight—the original plan was to create an encompassing work spanning all the major and minor keys—but by the time of the project's completion in 1851 numbered twelve. A little bit more history is needed to clarify precisely how the project evolved into the work as it's known today and performed on this engrossing sixty-seven-minute release by pianist Haochen Zhang, the Gold Medal winner at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Earlier BIS releases featured the pianist, a graduate of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music who also studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shenzhen Arts School, tackling concertos by Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven; the Liszt set sees him taking on a cycle that includes some of the most devilishly difficult works written for the piano. They also influenced piano works written after by Debussy, Rachmaninov, and others.

An 1837 revision of the work-in-progress emphasized virtuosity and at that stage made the pieces so challenging Robert Schumann called them “genuinely stormy and horrific studies, études for ten or twelve people in this world at most”; by the time the 1851 second revision appeared, the material had assumed a comparatively more tranquil and playable form. Even so, dazzling showpieces remain that test the mettle of even the most technically proficient pianist: of the untitled tenth étude (in F minor), for instance, Busoni said it presented “almost insurmountable difficulties.” Ten of them have titles that engender programmatic associations, though they're not in any way limited by the gesture. Titling them in that manner, however, makes them seem less like studies in piano technique than prefigurations of Impressionistic settings with evocative titles.

Naturally, a range of emotions and characters permeates the twelve pieces, and in a case or two immense emotional and stylistic ground is covered within a single one (see “Mazeppa,” for example, or the twelve-minute travelogue “Ricordanza”). Dramatic, ornate flourishes emblematic of Liszt's style introduce the work in the “Preludio,” after which the impish “Molto vivace (in A minor)” provides a brief foretaste of what follows. The arrival of “Paysage” (Landscape) brings with it an extreme contrast in tone when the tempo slows and volume drops for a contemplative idyll, Zhang executing this delicate étude as expertly as its dynamic counterparts.

Rippling runs alternate with declamatory chords in the unabashedly romantic and harmonically complex “Mazeppa,” certainly one of the more technically daunting of the twelve. Though pitched at a softer level, the playful “Feux follets” (Will o' the Wisps) presents an equal share of difficult passages for the pianist to master. Needless to say, Zhang meets both challenges handsomely. His command is also resoundingly evidenced by the aptly titled “Wilde Jagd” (Wild Hunt), which alternates between expressive romantic and grandiloquent episodes. Liszt supposedly had the funeral of Napoleon I in mind during the writing of “Vision,” and it shows in the sober grandeur of the piece. Perhaps the loveliest of the twelve is the penultimate “Harmonies du soir” (Evening Harmonies), a dreamy, intensely atmospheric study in D flat major, though the concluding “Chasse-neige” (Snow Flurries) is memorable for its elegiac tone, not to mention its oceanic tremolos and swells.

October 2023