Of the piano cycles Liszt composed during his 60s and 70s – including the third volume of Années de pèlerinage (1877), the Chorales for Cardinal Hohenlohe, the Five Little Piano Pieces for Olga von Meyendorff and Via Crucis (all from 1879) and the Historical Hungarian Portraits (1885) – surely the most intimate is the Christmas Tree (1876), dedicated to his granddaughter, Daniela von Bülow. Given that it has been recorded so seldom, it is noteworthy that Christmas Tree features on new releases by both Naxos and Piano Classics.

Polish pianist Wojciech Waleczek, who has already contributed two discs to the Naxos Liszt series, balances his performance of Christmas Tree with an interesting compilation of other late works. He plays the first version of the suite from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which differs in varying ways from the more familiar version published in 1882. ‘Lighting the Tree’ adroitly captures the excitement of lighting the candles. ‘Carillon’ is virtuosic with sonorities conjuring a zimbelstern. The ‘Berceuse’ is more extended and harmonically elaborate than the later version, which it otherwise closely resembles. And unlike the published version, ‘Old Provençal Christmas Song’ ends with one of the inconclusive cadences typical of some of Liszt’s other late pieces. Waleczek creates a beautiful atmosphere in ‘Evening Bells’, with rich tones from the piano, particularly in the bass range. He prefers a very slow andante in ‘Formerly’ and uses the technique of breaking the hands to heighten the poignancy. ‘Hungarian’, commonly supposed to be Liszt’s self-portrait, strikes a pose both haughty and a bit menacing, yet tinged with humour. Meanwhile, in ‘Polish’, a presumed portrait of Carolyne von Wittgenstein, Waleczek again opts for a leisurely andante as he creates a vividly recognisable mazurka as a rousing finale for the suite.

Among the other late works on the disc, Waleczek plays two of the four versions of La lugubre gondola, adroitly pointing up their differences. The Wiegenlied, a pared-down version of the opening of the symphonic poem Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, is taken extraordinarily slowly, but the line is beautifully maintained throughout. The Schlummerlied im Grabe is impassioned and full of exquisite voice-leading. National Hymne, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm!’, first published in 2003, makes a rousing impression despite its length of less than a minute.

British pianist Mark Viner’s interpretative approach to Christmas Tree, a little Christmas hymn and Liszt’s own transcription of two orchestral movements from his oratorio masterpiece Christus is something else altogether. Viner’s sound at the instrument is unfailingly pure and beautiful, and he renders textures with the utmost clarity. Unfortunately, amid this abundance of purity and clarity, the colouristic palette seems scrubbed clean. Curiously, within Liszt’s late 19th-century aesthetic, Viner studiously avoids any hint of tempo flexibility, whether in service of phrase-shaping, expressive emphasis or cadential conclusion. This sort of rigidity, occasionally verging on the metronomic, effectively obfuscates Liszt’s rhetoric and expressivity. Perhaps the goal here was self effacing interpretative objectivity – presenting the composer uncluttered by the performer’s intervention – in some anachronistic effort to expunge the music of any perceived sense of excess. I honestly can’t say.