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FRANZ LISZT: THE 2 PIANO CONCERTOS

Release Date: February 4, 2014
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Album Review

“Though there are myriad recordings of Liszt’s four best-known works for piano and orchestra, to find all four on the same disc is relatively uncommon. So how does this young (b1989), photogenic Armenian newcomer, now signed exclusively to the Dutch label Pentatone, measure up to the formidable roll call of seasoned Lisztians? The answer is remarkably well – but with reservations. The two concertos come off splendidly, aided not a little by Pentatone’s superb sound (it’s a hybrid multichannel Super Audio disc), in particular the A major: listen to Arghamanyan’s affecting handling of the D flat major section at 5’15” and duetting with the solo cello just before the Allegro deciso. Here is playing of real poetic allure bathed in a golden piano tone.”

Gramophone Magazine, 2013

“More than a year after Liszt’s bicentenary, PentaTone has come up with the latest in a flood of releases of these much-recorded works. Surplus to requirement, then, these interpretations need to be very good. They display some obvious strengths: the technique of this young Armenian-born pianist is beautifully fluent, giving her playing a freedom that is not at all slick or perfunctory, and she also offers likeable, rounded tone and more than reasonable firepower. The Second Concerto’s more integrated musical design suits Arghamanyan’s equable range of musical options rather better, and she has some good moments in the startling pre-modernist world of Totentanz, launching incisively into the repeated-note pyrotechnics of the Fifth Variation.The pleasing tone of Arghamanyan’s playing is well captured by the recording, while the orchestra is balanced just a notch close.

BBC music magazine ,2013