Arthur de Greef (1862-1940): Liszt - Hungarian Fantasy (2/2)

Arthur de Greef was one of the Liszt pupils from the late 1870s through the 1880s, contemporary with Rosenthal and Albéniz. He is best known for his 30-year association with Grieg, who spoke of de Greef as the finest performer of his works there was.

De Greef stands out amongst the Liszt pupils, and indeed from almost everyone of his generation, for the quite modern approach he had to interpretation. His performance is "anti-interventionist" and highly objective, in a non-romantic sort of way. His performances of Chopin prefigure the approach taken by Artur Rubenstein, of great delicacy and a certain cool straightforwardness.

Please see my other de Greef postings for more on his piano solo and concerto work. This Liszt Hungarian Fantasy is a strange choice to showcase the pianist. My first instinct was to assume that Greef would be basically boring in such an extrovert work and fail to capture the showy, zigeuner spirit. True, he doesn't go in for the declamatory or the chimerical. However, as with the other large-scale works he recorded, his insistence on defining the dramatic architecture (almost completely at the expense of any kind of for-the-moment intimacy, poetry, drama and spice) somehow has won me round after a few generous-minded listenings. The interpretation is nothing like what I expect, but is heroic, solid and terrifically powerful in its own terms.

Well, take it or leave it!

The recording was made in 1926.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• arthur
• de
• greef
• piano
• recording
• classical
• liszt
• hungarian
• fantasy

[Deltar2r]

projected and precise in its lightness

[Vioolconcert]

I don't like the orchestra

[WinterHaven]

He's so cute too!!!

[pjioayncoe]

I find this a rather very intimate interpretation not "for-the-moment" but as a whole. There are no useless exaggerations, capricious whims, hypocritical affectations, or any other similar characteristics that are wrongfully classified into the realm of "intimacy". This performance is a powerful statement, not just a trivial, spur of the moment vagary.

[anfalagu]

Es una maravilla poder escuchar estas grabaciones de antaño, gracias por subir el archivo. A.Laviano