Even at a time when recording techniques were not what they have become today, great musicians such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, then later Sergiu Celibidache, already had reservations about publishing their work other than from live performances. For them ‘live’ meant ‘alive’. That same credo was adopted to produce this album. Indeed, the wish for ‘immaculate perfection’ must sometimes give way to that for living music, which springs from a present moment that in its turn becomes the past… in an instant. In this way, performances are denied the possibility of revision, as studio recordings and subsequent editing allow. Yet if one is not careful in such reconstitution after the event, the very idea of a unique and privileged moment where the composer’s creativity can blossom forth unalloyed may be lost in the quest for seamless perfection, which however in reality becomes just an accumulation of faultless details. In that case the listener can do no more than follow their passage, without necessarily being able to grasp the overarching unity of a spontaneous expression. Consequently it is understandable that Richard Wagner himself should now come to mind, and particularly apposite to a profound fusion of the two composers in the piano reduction by Liszt of the last scene of Tristan and Isolde, Isoldes Liebestod, the love-death of Isolde. Who could ever imagine such passion surging so palpably from mere notes on paper? Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau put it in a nutshell: ‘Wagner is a sorcerer.’
And yet the greatest sorcerers still have to learn their art from others, though they might not like to admit it publicly. Thus Wagner acknowledged in private the inspiration that he drew from Franz Liszt, and which is clearly confirmed in the latter’s Ballade No. 2. Indeed, here we find the probable origin of certain themes in The Flying Dutchman, the Bird Leitmotif from Siegfried, and even that of Tristan, which Wagner reproduces practically note for note in his eponymous opera. These works were recorded live during two recitals given in the Salle Gaveau, Paris, in 2021 and 2023.
Extra material for download
