Liszt: The Complete Années de Pèlerinage Louis Lortie

• Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886): Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160:
• 1 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: I. La Chappelle de Guillaume Tell 06:22
• 2 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: II. Au lac de Wallenstadt 03:09
• 3 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: III. Pastorale 01:37
• 4 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: IV. Au bord d'une source 03:45
• 5 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: V. Orage 04:15
• 6 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: VI. Vallée d'Obermann 12:10
• 7 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: VII. Églogue 04:26
• 8 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: VIII. Le mal du pays 04:58
• 9 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Première Année, S. 160: IX. Les cloches de Genève 05:59
• Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161:
• 10 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: I. Sposalizio 06:56
• 11 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: II. Il Penseroso 04:20
• 12 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: III. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa 02:55
• 13 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: IV. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca 05:39
• 14 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: V. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca 06:41
• 15 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année, S. 161: VI. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca 07:01
• Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163:
• 16 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: VII. Après une lecture du Danteagitato 17:21
• 17 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: I. Angelus! Prière aux anges gardiens 07:51
• 18 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: II. Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este I 05:42
• 19 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: III. Aux cyprès de la Ville d'Este II 09:53
• 20 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: IV. Les Jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este 07:27
• 21 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: V. Sunt lacrymae rerum 06:16
• 22 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: VI. Marche funèbre 05:44
• 23 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Troisième Année, S. 163: VII. Sursum corda 03:27
• Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année. Italie, Venezia & Napoli, S. 162:
• 24 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année. Italie, Venezia & Napoli, S. 162: I. Gondoleria 05:06
• 25 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année. Italie, Venezia & Napoli, S. 162: II. Canzone 03:24
• 26 Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage, Deuxième Année. Italie, Venezia & Napoli, S. 162: III. Tarantella 08:51
• Total Runtime 02:41:15

Info for Liszt: The Complete Années de Pèlerinage

The virtuoso pianist and exclusive Chandos artist Louis Lortie here performs all three books, or ‘Years’, of Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), a work rarely recorded in its entirety. Lortie has made more than thirty recordings for Chandos, covering a repertoire from Mozart to Stravinsky. His recording of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Variations won an Edison Award; his disc of works by Schumann and Brahms was judged one of the best CDs of the year by BBC Music, and his interpretations of Liszt’s complete works for piano and orchestra and of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas were both selected as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone.

Liszt was an artist by nature. He seemed to feel and be affected by external influences far more deeply than most, and he was a master at translating these feelings into music. The first Year of the Années de Pèlerinage, a reworking of pieces from his earlier Album d’un Voyageur, was inspired by his travels in Switzerland as a young man. In this work, the music does not depict or describe particular scenes or landscapes, rather it attempts to communicate the feeling that Liszt experienced when he saw them, his ‘strongest sensations and most lively impressions’.

‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’, for example, depicts a fourteenth-century Swiss hero through a broad and stately theme that quotes a Swiss Alpine horn melody with trumpet calls, echoes, and tremolos. ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’ depicts the gently rising and retreating waves of the lake, over which Liszt places a theme of beautiful simplicity.

The second Year was inspired by the art and literature that Liszt encountered on his travels in Italy. ‘Sposalizio’ was inspired by Raphael’s painting The Marriage of the Virgin in the Brera in Milan, and ‘Il Penseroso’ by Michelangelo’s statue on the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence.

The third and last Year of the Années de Pèlerinage was written much later, when Liszt was in his sixties, and at a time when both the man and the style of his music had undergone a vast change. The pieces show far more simplicity in the treatment of the musical components and often convey a mood of despair and stark austerity.

From the outset, Liszt knew that his Années de Pèlerinage was unlikely to appeal to the masses. In his own words, the work was ‘written for the few rather than the many – not ambitious of success, but of the approval of that minority which conceives art as having other uses than the beguiling of idle hours, and asks more from it than the futile distraction of a passing entertainment’.

"Louis Lortie's credentials for taking on this greatest of musical pilgrimages are self-evident from the start. The opening 'Chapelle de Guillaume Tell', from the Switzerland-inspired first book, is delivered with epic sweep and grandeur, wonderfully shimmering tremolos, and a huge tonal range." (BBC Music Magazine)

"Complete - and completely successful - traversals of Années de pèlerinage are relatively thin on the ground, This is one of them. Usually one or two pieces fall by the wayside but Lortie maintains a consistent level of excellence in performances that transcend the sterile surrounds of the studio." (Classic FM Magazine)

"His identification with Liszt's poetic message lends every bar an unimpeachable emotional authenticity and, conceptually speaking, these are strikingly original interpretations, without a trace of received wisdom. In a word, this fresh and vital Années de Pèlerinage is quite unlike any other." (International Record Review)

Louis Lortie, piano

Louis Lortie
French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has attracted critical acclaim throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. He has extended his interpretative voice across a broad range of repertoire rather than choosing to specialize in one particular style. The London Times, describing his playing as "ever immaculate, ever imaginative", has identified the artist's "combination of total spontaneity and meditated ripeness that only great pianists have".

Mr. Lortie has performed complete Beethoven sonata cycles at London's Wigmore Hall, Berlin's Philharmonie, and the Sala Grande del Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. Die Welt described his Berlin performances as "possibly the finest Beethoven since the time of Wilhelm Kempff." As both pianist and conductor with the Montreal Symphony, he has performed all five Beethoven concertos and all of the Mozart concertos. Mr. Lortie has also won widespread acclaim for his interpretation of Ravel and Chopin. He performed the complete works of Ravel in London and Montreal for the BBC and CBC, and is renowned all over the world for his performances of the complete Chopin etudes.

Louis Lortie celebrated the bicentenary of Liszt's birth in 2011 by performing the complete Années de pèlerinage at international music capitals and festivals, and he returns to Carnegie Hall in 2014 to perform it there. His Chandos recording of this monumental work was named one of the ten best of 2012 by the New Yorker magazine.

In 2013-2014 Mr. Lortie tours in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and returns to the BBC Proms, the orchestras of St. Louis, Atlanta, Dallas, Vancouver, Detroit, the Suisse Romande, Nurnberg, BBC Philharmonic, Dresden and Hamburg, play/conducts a Mozart program for the Toronto Symphony, and performs recitals in the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia, Warsaw, Montreal, Bournemouth, the Casals Festival, the Sydney Opera House, the National Arts Center, Duke University and in Milan.

Last season he performed Gershwin in Sao Paulo with Tortelier, Liszt with NHK Tokyo and Dutoit, Chopin with the Cleveland Orchestra and Van Zweden, Schubert and Liszt with Krivine in Utrecht, Mozart with the Royal Philharmonic and Dutoit; toured with the La Scala Orchestra playing Brahms 2 and with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn playing Beethoven 4 and 5. He returned to Chicago's Orchestra Hall and other important venues to perform a recital program of opera transcriptions called "Lortie goes to the Opera". Other recitals included Copenhagen, Osaka, Cremona and Dresden.

Louis Lortie has performed with the world's leading conductors, including Riccardo Chailly, Lorin Maazel, Jaap Van Zweden, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Sanderling, Neeme Järvi, Sir Andrew Davis, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Sir Mark Elder, Hannu Lintu, and Osmo Vänskä. He has also been involved in many chamber-music projects with such musicians as Frank Peter Zimmermann, Leonidas Kavakos, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Augustin Dumay, the Takács Quartet, and Gidon Kremer. His regular piano-duo partner is fellow Canadian Hélène Mercier.

He has made more than 30 recordings for the Chandos label, covering repertoire from Mozart to Stravinsky, including a set of the complete Beethoven sonatas and the complete Liszt's Années de pèlerinage. His recording of the Lutosławski Piano Concerto and Paganini Variations with Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony was released last year, as well as his latest Chopin album, which was named one of the best recordings of 2012 by the New York Times. Future recording include a disc of Liszt's transcriptions.

Mr. Lortie's recording of Beethoven's Eroica Variations earned him an Edison Award. His disc of works by Schumann and Brahms was named one of the best CDs of the year by BBC Music Magazine, which also named his disc of Chopin etudes one of "50 Recordings by Superlative Pianists." His interpretation of Liszt's complete works for piano and orchestra with the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague was a Gramophone Editor's Choice. For the Canadian label ATMA Classique, he has recorded Mendelssohn concertos with the Orchestre symphonique de Quebec and, as conductor, Mendelssohn's "Reformation" Symphony.

Louis Lortie studied in Montreal with Yvonne Hubert (a pupil of the legendary Alfred Cortot), in Vienna with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber, and subsequently with Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher. He made his debut with the Montreal Symphony at the age of 13; three years later, his first appearance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra led to an historic tour of the People's Republic of China and Japan. In 1984, he won First Prize in the Busoni Competition and was also prizewinner at the Leeds Competition. In 1992, he was named Officer of the Order of Canada, and received both the Order of Quebec and an honorary doctorate from Université Laval. He has lived in Berlin since 1997 and also has homes in Canada and Italy.

Booklet for Liszt: The Complete Années de Pèlerinage