One of the hardest working pianists in the business, William Wolfram is nothing if not a consummate professional–an artist whose world-class technique, beautifully modulated sonority, and good taste inform everything he touches, including Liszt’s oft-recorded concert etudes that open this release. The interpretations, however, hit and miss. Wolfram negotiates Gnomenreigen’s elfin runs to perfection, but without quite the evenness and forward sweep Bolet and Arrau achieve at similarly measured tempos. Wolfram’s flabby rubatos in Waldesrauschen move neither the music nor my soul, and the murmuring arpeggios fall short of his aforementioned older colleagues’ tonal magic. If Un Sospiro lacks Earl Wild’s rolling gravity and long line, Wolfram admirably sustains the sprawling Il Lamento and makes something special of La Leggeriezza’s slower moments.
The 12 pieces encompassing Etude en douze exercices are essentially the better-known 12 Transcendental Etudes in embryonic form, composed when Liszt was 13. Wolfram’s sturdy virtuosity may not represent the last word in panache or scintillation, yet I prefer it to Leslie Howard’s less colorful sobriety. The disc concludes with fine performances of two so-called “etudes de perfectionnement” and an earlier incarnation of Mazeppa that comes within spitting distance of its flashier 1851 revision in the Transcendental Etudes. Superb sound and excellent, informative notes complete this uneven recital.
