Llyr Williams

Liszt: Excerpts From Annees De Pelerinage etc

(Signum Classics)

WITH Welsh master pianist Llyr Williams appearing at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 30 with a stupendous all-Liszt programme culminating in the great B minor Sonata, to be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, the timing of his new Liszt CD on Signum could hardly be better. I've been banging on for years about Williams's prowess as a Beethovenian, but he is no less formidable a Lisztian. If there is flamboyance here, it's in the music: Williams is too serious and concentrated for nonsense. His playing of the Petrarch Sonnets is poetry although tempered with the Williams steel. His Tarantella (which he'll play in Edinburgh) is a miracle of speed and light, while his Dante Sonata is powerfully dramatic and Isolde's Liebestod pulses inexorably to the climax. Williams's expansiveness with the great Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude is balanced by the effortless manner in which he keeps it on the move. A superior album which is highly recommended. Do not miss the Queen's Hall recital at the end of the month.

Michael Tumelty