Michael Korstick may not be a colorist or poetic aristocrat on the level of other pianists who’ve recorded the second book of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage memorably, yet his intense, purposeful playing reveals a strong interpretive point of view that compels you to listen. He sustains Il Penserioso’s slow tempo with subtle inflections of the right hand’s dotted rhythms and by giving the rolled left-hand chords their full due. The boisterous, extroverted Canzonetta Del Salvator Rosa markedly contrasts with the relatively contained and refined interpretations that Jorge Bolet and Muza Rubackyté deliver.
In Korstick’s hands, the three Petrarca pieces emerge more urgently and dynamically charged than usual, with lots of inner-voice activity. However, for sheer technical aplomb, Korstick’s treatment of the Dante Sonata’s climactic pages recalls the kinetic impact of Lazar Berman’s pulverizing octaves.
Korstick’s lyrical side considerably opens up in terms of phrasing and tone projection in the five late-period pieces, imparting a welcome tender quality to the music’s generally sparse and bleak countenance. You especially notice this in the Wiegenlied, La lugubre gondola No. 2’s animated central section, and in the Trauermarsch’s fragile last pages. A release well worth the attention of any self-respecting Liszt acolyte.
