Franz Lizst – Hungarian Rhapsody no 2‏

by richibi

any one of the following outstanding interpretations
of Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody no 2, even individually,
will make your day, I promise, together, they’ll have
you rocking for surely a week 
 
Hanna and Barbera’s “The Cat Concerto“, with Tom
and Jerry, won the Oscar in 1947, Best Short Subject,
Cartoons 
 
the “Rhapsody“ itself is of course not a concerto, it 
was written for piano only, it’s been proven to be 
incontrovertibly enough, but was given an orchestral
backdrop by the studio for the film, hence“The Cat
Concerto“, I’ll leave the portion about the cat in the
title undiscussed  
 
Liszt also rearranged himself, incidentally, his
immensely successful work for solo piano, adding
a superfluous, in my opinion, orchestra, any virtuoso
who could play this would leave his backup surely,
inexorably, in the dust
 
but I might be wrong
 
 
Victor Borge is an absolute comic genius in a
performance you’re not likely to soon forget 
 
 
Marc-André Hamelin, a French Canadian, is in my
estimation unmatched in the world today, he’ll
blow your socks off, you will be dazzled 
 
the unfamiliar part near the end of his interpretation, 
the part you’ve never heard before, is of Hamelin‘s 
own invention, a cadenza, an option fully granted in
bravura compositons by composers, allowing any
pianist to strut his, her, individual stuff, foreshadowing,
by the way, improvisation, jazz 
 
you’ll find Marc-André Hamelin in his extrapolation
to be nothing short of extraordinary 
 
 
Richard