Volume 40 of Naxos’s complete piano music of Liszt usefully combines all but one of the major solo Meyerbeer transcriptions. Only the Grande Fantaisie on themes from Les Huguenots is missing (that appeared on the very first volume of the series, played by the masterful Arnaldo Cohen – 6/97) but, with a generous running time of 82'57", not many more notes could have been accommodated on this disc.

Sadly, there are few other positives. Sergio Gallo’s mission is not helped by having to kick off with one of Liszt’s least successful operatic transcriptions, the first of the three Illustrations du Prophète, an irritatingly fragmented medley of the Coronation March, the Anabaptist’s chant from Act 1 (which provided the material for Liszt’s organ masterpiece Ad nos, ad salutarem undam and his piano duet version) and the Hymn of Triumph from Act 3. It is music not helped by the insistently strident tone of the piano. The Model D’s shrill, resonant upper treble at forte and above contrasts with a dull, chalky middle register that seems to emanate from a smaller instrument – and one with hammers that need some TLC.

Having endured over 16 minutes of this, one turns for relief to the (almost as lengthy) ‘Les patineurs scherzo’. But where is the wit, the playfulness, the sheer fun of this once-popular showpiece? Louis Kentner’s famous 1939 recording, albeit heavily (and, some might say, beneficially) abridged, is in an altogether different realm. The third Illustration fares little better, where Gallo is as much the opera house répetiteur as he is in the ‘Valse infernale’ from Robert le diable, a favourite piece with Liszt’s audiences. Here the incomparable Earl Wild shows Gallo a clean pair of heels in his celebrated 1968 Vanguard recording (now available on Piano Classics). Gallo’s best playing comes in the quieter interludes of the ‘Prière des matelots’, the first of the two Illustrations de L’Africaine, but it is hardly enough to save a listening experience reserved for only the most ardent Liszt-heads.