I took Kevin Sutton's advice and went to Circuit City to see if they had a
copy of the Jeno Jando Liszt Concerto. I already had his disk with the
Malediction Concerto, Lelio Fantasy and The Ruins of Athens. I really didn't
need ANOTHER copy of the Liszt 1st, but I hadn't been to Circuit City in
quite some time.

I found the concerto, and the CD also had Totentanz and the Wanderer Fantasy
on it.  I didn't have a CD version of the Wanderer, so I bought it. It was
part of a boxed 2-CD set called "RHAPSODY IN BLUE & other Spectaculars". The
only common thread tying the discs together is that Jando plays on both. I
can probably trash the box, since there is no real reason to keep the disks
together.

Both CD's are labeled Laserlight. The Liszt CD is part of their "Les Fleurs"
collection (I kid you non, c'est une daylily !). Evidently the Gershwin is
not flowery enough to be part of this series.

Jando is certainly competent, which I would have expected from other
recordings of his. The Wanderer could be a little bit faster, but is
certainly quite good. I really enjoy this hybrid work and since Liszt was so
influenced by the original, it  makes his version particularly interesting.

While at Circuit City, I also found a couple of other disks for $1.99, and
couldn't pass them up. One is on the Masterpiece label with the Rach 2 and
the first Suite for 2 pianos. The suite is deadly slow, but again I didn't
have a CD version. Has anyone heard if the old Vronsky & Babin account will
ever be on CD ? Everything about this Rach CD is anonymous. No pianist(s) or
conductors are named.

Ironically, after my recent post where I mentioned Index Points, the Liszt
CD has 3 of them for the second track of the 3-track Concerto. This is the
first time I have seen these points in several years. Totentanz and The
Wanderer have only one track each. Odd.




Joel Hill
Tallahassee, FL - USA
ALKAN Web Page:  http://www.nettally.com/joelhill/alkan