This generously packed CD pays eloquent tribute to Tamás Vásáry’s early celebrity and a furore partly launched by Liszt recordings that acquired a legendary status. Hearing them again is to be reminded of Vásáry’s youthful aplomb, of an elegance and lightness that disdain even the most formidable intricacies. There is enough darting fancy in the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody to tell you that he is a Hungarian who delights in the verve and character of his own music, while his Valse-Impromptu, a period charmer that has somehow slipped out of the repertoire, is as deft and vivacious, as truly scherzando, as even the most ardent aficionado could wish. Vásáry is magically confiding in the popular D flat Consolation and his velocissimo opening flourishes in Rigoletto will make less nimble pianists weep with envy. Among the most remarkable of his first DG recordings, this performance displays both pianistic and stylistic assurance in an aristocratic manner; nor does any bombast enter his reading of the daunting Don Giovanni Fantasy. Others, such as Jorge Bolet, may inflect their readings with grander broader lines, but when it comes to terms such as leggierissimo and precipitato Vásáry has few equals. His Saint Francis Legend lacks the imaginative scope of, say, Kempff and although the filagree at the heart of the E major Polonaise is spun off with dazzling fluency the outer sections are surprisingly staid. So although there are occasional suggestions of a more neat than heroic Lisztian there are enough flashes of wizardry and poetic inspiration to make this a notable reissue, and one that has been excellently remastered.