Lucy Parham
Odyssey Of Love
(Deux-Elles)
As a grizzled Lisztophile of many decades standing, I've been listening with great pleasure and enjoyment to pianist Lucy Parham's latest exploration, through words and music, into the life, mind and many loves (in this case) of a great composer, here Franz Liszt. Parham is extremely enterprising, having scripted the tale of Liszt and two of his greatest loves, Countess Marie d' Agoult and the almost unbelievable, cigar-smoking Princess Caroline Sayn-Wittgenstein, by drawing from correspondence and diaries. She has crafted a memorable yarn that's delivered with consummate narrative coherence by actors Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman, while Parham provides musical context and links through her performances of carefully selected gems, including Un Sospiro, Schubert and Schumann song transcriptions and some less-familiar later pieces. Parham's virtuosity is functional, never spangly. She's done other composers, including Chopin and Schumann - I must get them. The concept is brilliant, it totally works, is engaging, insightful and informative, and there is not a trace of tricksiness or flash about it.
Michael Tumelty
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