Liszt: Consolations in Bloomington, MN

Pianist
Saskia Giorgini
found both critical and commercial success with her 2022 recording of
Liszt's Harmonies poetiques et religieuses
, and this 2023 release, which immediately climbed onto classical best-seller charts, follows directly on the earlier album, with the same
Boesendorfer
piano and the same recording location, the Lisztzentrum in Raiding, Austria. Listeners will not be disappointed, for
Consolations
has all the virtues of her first
Liszt
album and adds a few more. The wonderfully controlled lyricism of the
Harmonies poetiques et religieuses
recurs in the
heavily programmatic title work
, where
Giorgini
's playing hints at the presence of all kinds of stories. She plainly excels in the religious, late
, and there are two wonderful examples here, the
Deux Legends
, portraits of
St. Francis of Assisi praying to the birds
, and of
St. Francois de Paule
. These are difficult works that combine mysticism with Lisztian virtuosity; annotator
Mark Berry
is right to stress that
did not fully renounce the virtuosity in his later years, but that is not all.
is just as good in the flashy
Three Caprices-Valses
and the reflective
Liebestraeume
, the best-known music on the album. In the
Valse-Impromptu
, she has an uncanny way of suggesting the feeling of spontaneity that seems to have marked
's own playing. Will
go on with
? She certainly has the technical and emotional wherewithal to do so and to take on more famous works than these. ~ James Manheim