Glyn Pursglove reviews Ingrid Carbone’s first CD “Franz Liszt: Les Harmonies de l’Esprit” on MusicWeb International.
Some accounts of Liszt’s life and work make his taking of minor orders in July 1865 sound like a sudden volte-face, a total change of character and direction. However, the more one looks at Liszt’s life and compositions, the more his Christian faith seems to be a constant in his life (even if sometimes obscured behind the worldlier dimensions of that life).
The disc opens with a compelling performance of Après une Lecture du Dante (or Dante Sonata). The technical complexities of the piece clearly hold no fears for Ms. Carbone, but what I find most effective is the clarity with which she delineates the shape of the work. The essential arc of Après une Lecture du Dante is of a movement through darkness, pain and struggle to light and hope.
“Certainly, as performed by Ingrid Carbone, these pieces have a depth of feeling and aspiration which it is not hard to think of as ‘sacred’. She captures very well the reflective and sometimes ‘melancholy’ nature (one thinks of Loyola’s identification of some tears as a form of spiritual consolation) of these pieces.”
