Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/16/2009, uploaded on 12/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Reminiscences of Norma by Bellini               Franz Liszt  

Franz Liszt's piano fantasy on one of the greatest bel canto operas, Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, was composed only ten years after the opera itself.  Liszt regularly performed Reminiscences de Norma during his brief career as a concert pianist, and although it is predictably virtuosic, with thundering octaves and sweeping arpeggiation throughout, it was conceived as much more than just a technical showcase.  Liszt does not merely transcribe the seven themes that he chose from the opera, but rather transforms and develops them, creating a carefully structured work that builds in intensity and developmental complexity until the themes are contrapuntally combined in the brilliant coda.     Janice Fehlauer

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.