“I salute the whole achievement as an astonishing, musically enlightening and historically absorbing must-listen. Recommended.” International Record Review on Yury Martynov’s Beethoven/Liszt cycle Yury Martynov here plays the same Blüthner piano of 1867 chosen for the previous volume in this series as he moves on to Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies in their transcriptions by Liszt. The Hungarian composer wrote of his approach: ‘I will be satisfied if I have accomplished the task of the intelligent engraver, the conscientious translator, who grasp the spirit of a work along with the letter, and thereby help to propagate knowledge of the masters and the appreciation of the beautiful.’

Transcription, for Franz Liszt, was in equal measure a means of celebrating the genius of Beethoven and of meditating on his works. It was also a way of provoking a well-nigh titanic confrontation between the resources of the pianist and his instrument and the immense potential of the orchestra. Thus the power of the interpreter’s conception, his understanding of the essence of the work, become the crucial factor in Liszt’s approach and in the adventure offered to the listener.

For the third volume of his complete set of Liszt’s transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies, Yury Martynov has chosen a piano of 1867 made by Blüthner, whose instruments were much admired by Liszt.

The fourth and fifth volumes in the series will be released in early 2015 and early 2016 respectively. Yury Martynov will also record a Prokofiev programme on a modern piano, which will be issued by Zig-Zag Territoires in the autumn of 2014.

The Russian pianist Yury Martynov presents here the second volume of the complete recording he has undertaken of the cycle of the Beethoven symphonies as transcribed for the piano by Franz Liszt. For both the pianist and his listeners, this recording constitutes a genuine adventure, combining the creative genius of Beethoven, the inspired vision of these works of the composer and pianist Franz Liszt, and a piano with the same sonic resources as were available to Liszt.

Here is what Liszt had to say about the piano as a medium of transcription: ‘In the compass of its seven octaves, it can produce, with only a few exceptions, all the characteristics, all the combinations, all the most learned compositional figures, and leaves the orchestra no other advantages than those . . . of diversity of timbre and massed effects.’

For these two symphonies, Yury Martynov has chosen the same Érard piano of 1837 on which he recorded the first volume of this series. That CD – Symphonies nos.6 and 2 / ZZT 301 – received a particularly warm welcome from the press (‘Choc’ de Classica, May 2012).