Piano Works

CD Piano Works Edith Farnadi

The four pieces on this CD were all premiered during the great period of success, when Liszt limited his prodigious virtuoso career that had begun when he was a young adolescent and settled down in Weimar. During the Weimar period, his orchestral writing rose to its heights with the composition of his symphonic poems in which he tried to find in literature another way to develop musical creativity. It was at that time that Liszt perfected his technique of orchestration.
Farnadi's transcendent technique, coupled with her taste for acrobatics, her impressive dynamics of sound, the art of orchestral coloring, her versatile fingering and a great power in dramatic suggestion, were all normal and necessary qualities in order to play Liszt. Of course, Farnadi, the great virtuoso accustomed to the difficulties of the school of Liszt, owned these qualities and dominated them with impressive and total mastery. What is more characteristic of Farnadi's most personal music making compared with other Liszt interpreters, is her graceful approach mixed with firm musical lines and great finger steadiness. She never loses sight of the leading idea of the score she performs, and technical difficulties are no obstacle for her; moreover, she never exaggerates them. Her musical discourse is fine-tuned and reveals itself with great strength. The resulting performance is dominated by a sense of nobility, allowing for all expressive possibilities without ever falling into riviality; she conveys intelligence tightly bound with sensitivity. Farnadi lacks neither passion nor temperament (besides, an austere and distant affect would foil the music of Liszt itself); but the Hungarian pianist didn’t limit herself to the simple description of subjective images, nor did she make the choice of excessiveness and astonishment. She rather developed all the aspects of the Liszt's true piano music, preferring psychological characterization to musical landscaping.