This really is a pretty phenomenal achievement. Leslie Howard takes Liszt's ruthlessly thorough transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies in his stride and frequently manages to make compelling listening of them. I have fond memories of Idil Biret's LP set for EMI (3/87), which as yet has not appeared on CD, but Howard is perhaps more obviously successful in the venture. One could not wish for a pianist with a cleaner and more comprehensive style of playing. His approach is very much that of the musician, rather than pianist per se and he aims always to display the broad scope of a work, not distracting the listener with pianistic detail. Each symphony is copiously annotated, with interesting information as to the genesis of the transcriptions. With a certain amount of pride Howard is able to relate why he has nearly always chosen the more taxing version of a particular passage when an alternative one exists.
I wouldn't recommend the listener to start with the First Symphony. There is little spontaneity in the first movement, and although the second is amiably done, it is not until the finale that the playing becomes sufficiently pointed. Howard runs through the Menuetto without much happening at all. The Second Symphony is quite another matter. For one thing, Liszt's writing is more imaginative and Howard rises to the drama of the opening movement with playing that is consistently engaging and spirited. He makes a real performance of the work. The Larghetto second movement is charming—full of sensibility and affection for the music. The fourth movement, amazingly scrupulous and thorough in this form, does not wrong-foot him either, Howard strides through it with unflagging zeal and convincing temperament.
In writing of the Eroica, the pianist tells that the transcription is ''merciless in its demands upon the complete gamut of concert technique'', but since he implies that this is also the case with several of the other reworkings, one tends to take this as a coded message that he considers they would faze any normal pianist, which he is not. The Marche funebre of the Eroica works better than most, and the move to sparser writing is the reason for this. I didn't terribly care for the fugal section, though, which Howard makes sound unnecessarily staid and academic. Again, however, it is the finale that emerges as the most successful movement. The voices are better defined and there is a greater range of touch to be exploited. Sadly, the presto coda comes off as clumsy. Moving on to the Fourth Symphony, although one can admire some warm and ingratiating phrasing in the Adagio, with Howard employing a luxurious tonal palette, the first movement is a trifle awkward, and the finale what Howard describes as Beethoven's ''reddess bonhomie'' notwithstanding, suffers greatly from the almost constant presence of semi-quavers, which tend to become a little irritating.
The pianist thankfully saves the victory motif of the Fifth Symphony from sounding unduly repetitive or banal, and without going in for anything spectacular, he still manages to involve one's attention. The finale, however, is short on monumental breadth and the recorded sound, which is never especially good, tends to blur several of the entries through reverberation. The Pastoral is much better. Liszt used to play the last three movements in concert, apparently, and had real success with them. Howard says that this is the most pianistic of these transcriptions, and certainly, apart from the opening movement, which I didn't care for, the performance is outstandingly successful. In the ''Scene by the Brook'' one hears the birds twittering and the water flowing as they should and one is amazed by Liszt's skill at including virtually all the details from the orchestral score.
Although the recapitulation of the first movement of the Seventh is very spirited, I felt that Howard got a bit lost musically as the development became more involved. The middle section of the heavenly Allegretto may have a touching late-Schubert innocence about it, but for the main part the substitution of piano for orchestra does the music no service. I was reminded of Saint-Saens in the scherzo; it sounds curiously un-Beethovenian. The Eighth Symphony has its strengths here, but is not one of the most successful performances.
So we come to the mighty Ninth, all 66'49'' of it. Howard rises to the occasion, never allowing himself to be overwhelmed by the task. He conjures up some wonderfully powerful images in the opening movement. It is a rousing and imperiously exciting reading. The dark rumblings of the coda are especially effective and the movement ends with magisterially rich sonorities. Needless to say, on account of its length, one misses the orchestral colours in the Adagio, though, again, because of the relatively sparse scoring, it works sufficiently well. Liszt maintains the feeling of spiritual purity. He did what he could with the finale, though, of course, it could never be more than an approximation of the original. Although the prestissimos right at the end may sound a bit tired, this movement is Howard's tour de force.
As I have mentioned, the piano tone, reverberant in the acoustic, is not especially pleasing. But then, the CDs are at mid-price. This is not a release that will appeal to the general music-lover, of course, but I urge Lisztians to hear it, and even those who collect the 'proper' versions of the Beethoven symphonies—it is a marvellous way of hearing them afresh.'