Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse, S. 160: Au lac de Wallenstadt
Franz Liszt
Recording
Lazar Berman
- Album
- Liszt: Années de Pèlerinage
- Year
- 1977
- Length
- Period
- Romantic
- Listen
Painting
John Frederick Kensett
Lake George, 1869
The piece
Liszt wrote the first version in the 1830s after traveling in Switzerland and published this revision in 1855 as the second piece of the Swiss book of Années de pèlerinage, headed with lines from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage about a still lake. A melody in A-flat major sits over a rocking accompaniment that keeps going under it to the end.
The recording
Lazar Berman recorded the complete Années de pèlerinage for Deutsche Grammophon in May 1977 in the Alter Herkulessaal, Munich. Classics Today wrote of its "sheer evenness, control, and rhythmic panache," and Gramophone called the sound "first-rate."
Other recordings
Louis Lortie's complete set (Chandos, 2011) and Bertrand Chamayou's (Naïve, 2011) are also worth knowing.