André Laplante offers much to enjoy in the Swiss chapter of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage. He effectively shapes and sustains the stark rhetoric in the final two pieces (Le mal du pays and Les cloches de Genève), while his varied articulations and tone color deployment prevent the extensive tremolos in Chapelle de Guillaume Tell and Vallée d’Obermann from grating on your nerves. By contrast, his soft-grained interpretations of Au lac de Wallenstadt, Pastorale, and Au bord d’une source do not match more sharply etched versions from Lazar Berman and Jorge Bolet, let alone Mûza Rubackyté’s superbly profiled melody/accompaniment perspectives. And given Laplante’s supple, relaxed octave playing in other repertoire (his fantastic Brahms Third Sonata, for example), Orage comes off surprisingly bangy and prosaic. Not a bad disc by any means, but it could have been better.
