Liszt: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2; Sonata in B Minor

For the past 60 years, the go-to recording of these concertos was the one by Sviatoslav Richter and Kirill Kondrashin, made with the LSO in 1961. There have been many good recordings of the sonata, including those of Stephen Hough and Krystian Zimerman—but for me, none will surpass what I heard when Radu Lupu performed the work at a recital in Martigny, Switzerland in the 1980s—every note transcendent. Well, it’s time to make room at the top for British pianist Alexander Ullman, whose accounts here are magisterial and very much in the grand manner. His playing is brilliant, superbly articulated, and above all, tastefully musical. This is Litton’s second recording of the Liszt concertos, and it is rich in poise and poetry as well as excitement. He draws expressive work from the BBC players, especially the orchestra’s outstanding first-desk soloists, delivering accounts that are hot, but never overheated. The recording takes full advantage of the transparent, wondrously “live” sound of BBC’s Maida Vale studio in the concertos, and of the superb acoustic of London’s Henry Wood Hall in the sonata. The pickup on Ullman’s piano is excellent in both venues