If you listen in order to the sounds of the three previous piano recordings I have produced—Anna Maria Stanczyk performing Chopin on the first Stereophile Test CD, Robert Silverman performing Brahms on Intermezzo, and performing…
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John Atkinson: You had mentioned at the sessions that while it was the same Steinway you'd played on Concert, a year had gone by and it actually felt more responsive under your fingers. To the lay person, all instruments look the same. Are they really individuals? How different are pianos?
Silverman: How different are amplifiers? [laughs] I'd say pianos are more different. By a lot, actually.
But…
Sonata in B-Minor (Searle.178): Franz Liszt is credited with having written only one full-fledged sonata for piano, if one doesn't include the Fantasia quasi sonata, Après une lecture du Dante (from his Années de Pèlerinage, Book II: Italy), which is more dependent on its literary base. At least that's all that has come down to us from the composer's time. A C-Minor sonata had been mentioned by Liszt, and there evidently also was a sonata for four hands at one keyboard. Additionally, the composer as late as 1881 was able to recall the first 16 bars of a two-hand…
The Vallée d'Obermann is a prime example of one of Liszt's favorite compositional techniques, that of thematic metamorphosis; this entire piece is based on a…
Sonata: Piano Works by Franz Liszt (DDD) STPH008-2 Robert Silverman, piano
Franz Liszt: Piano Sonata in b (S.178) 33:11
[1] Lento assai—Allegro Energico 13:08
[2] Andante Sostenuto 8:23
[3] Allegro Energico 11:40
[4] La lugubre gondola I (S.200) 4:21
[5] La lugubre gondola II (S.200) 9:05
Années de Pelèrinage, First Year: Switzerland
[6] Vallée d'Obermann (S.160/6) 15:37
[7] Orage (S.160/5) 5:01
[8] Liebestraum (S.541) 5:21
Total Playing Time: 72:37
Robert Silverman is perhaps best-known in his native Canada, where he has performed with major orchestras from coast to coast. But he has also appeared, to outstanding reviews, with the Chicago Symphony and the Boston Pops, and in New York, Washington, London, Paris, Budapest, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, and the former Soviet Union.
His repertoire ranges from Bach to Mozart to Gershwin to new age to contemporary—including the first performance in Canada of George Crumb's Makrokosmos.
He has made over a dozen recordings: for Stereophile, CBC…
Silverman: The entire fabric of the work is based on the three themes you hear right at the beginning: the quiet quarter-note Gs, followed by the descending scale [fig.1, track 1, 0:00]; then I was going to say the "Wagnerian" outburst right after that [fig.2, track 1, 0:43], but as far as I'm concerned a Wagner opera is an extended Liszt symphonic poem, the sonata staged and sung; then, finally, the repeated note theme [that starts with the] "snare-drum" triplet figure [fig.3, track 1, 0:55]. You turn the page over and…