Gramophone Magazine
September 2018
Editor's Choice

Leonardo Pierdomenico (piano)

Liszt: Scherzo and March, S. 177
Liszt: Ballade No. 1 in D flat major S170 ('Le chant du croisé')
Liszt: Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S171 / R16
Liszt: La romanesca, S252a / R91
Liszt: Legendes (2) for piano, S. 175
Liszt: Csárdás macabre, S. 224

Young Italian pianist Leonardo Pierdomenico drew the international spotlights on him winning the Jury Award at the recent Van Cliburn Competition. Having already won the prestigious Premio Venezia in Italy he steadily builds his career, playing recitals and with prominent orchestras.

His debut CD on Piano Classics features an impressive selection of piano works by Franz Liszt: the demonic and fiendishly difficult Scherzo und Marsch (still rarely played), the two dramatic Ballades, the two famous Légendes with their religious references, and a late work, the Csárdás Macabre, an astonishing and spine tingling work featuring a remorseless sequence of parallel fifths.

The booklet contains excellent liner notes written by the Chairman of the English Liszt Society: Mark Viner.

"Would that half the seasoned Lisztians I know had Pierdomenico’s keen ear for stylistic differentiation within this half-century of repertory. His highly developed technique and cultivated sound, both adaptable to a variety of affects, are wedded to those twin essentials for artistic Liszt-playing: imagination combined with thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality." - Gramophone Magazine September 2018