Liszt made his transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies so that music-lovers could familiarize themselves with these masterworks at a time when their performance was irregular. It therefore seems bizarre that I should be comparing three versions of the Choral Symphony played on the piano when there are so many magnificent discs currently available with the original orchestration. Of course, none of the piano versions can in any way be a substitute, and had one never heard the orchestral score in its full splendour, they would only give one a very vague idea of what might have been.
As one would expect, the two-piano versions of Harmonia Mundi and Dynamic are able to include much more of the detail than is possible on one instrument alone. Katsaris on Teldec/ASV nevertheless scores some points in that being the sole interpreter he is able to retain a more individual control over the piece. However, I must say that I found his ideas and his pianism too wilful, especially in his constant supplementing of the bass part, which results in so many bombastic effects. Nor does he have anything particularly noteworthy to contribute to one's understanding of the music.
Of the two-piano versions, the Canino-Ballista Duo, who have been playing together for a number of years, feature surprisingly sloppy ensemble, although musically they display more originality than the Frenchmen. The Italians have considerable flexibility in their treatment of tempo and in the choral finale the two players achieve a subtle interplay between the parts. With them the entrance to the march section is by far the more atmospheric performance. Although they score over the Frenchmen in this movement, the latter are generally the more polished and reliable.
So far as I am concerned, the clinching factor in choosing one of these performances would be the recording quality. The Dynamic CD has a boxedin sound that is frankly crude. In the finale the bouncy piano tone acts against the pianists' abilities to build up the requisite sonority for a climax. I find the channelling in this release to be rather badly judged as well. Planes and Pludermacher on Harmonia Mundi have been blessed with a discriminating engineer, who has found just the right amount of reverberation to give the 'spacial' element to the acoustic. Katsaris's version, in an attempt to endow the piano with as much sound as possible, has been submerged in a hazy wash of sounds that is unnatural.'