These performances date from 1963, yet such is Sir Clifford Curzon’s alchemy that they seem timeless, as vital and poetic as the day they were first committed to disc. You can hear B minor Sonatas of a higher voltage and necromancy (Argerich, or Horowitz’s legendary 1932 recording) but Curzon’s light-fingered clarity, tonal sheen and musical devotion make their special and, indeed, unique mark. In his encores, too, Sir Clifford is incomparable. The Third Liebestraum emerges untarnished by overfamiliarity, yet Curzon is no less sensitive to the hallucinatory magic of the first Valse oubliee, the only work from Liszt’s final and dark-hued period to have entered the standard repertoire. Gnomenreigen is transformed at a touch from concert-study into tone-poem while the Berceuse’s luminous intricacy is traced with the rarest delicacy. Schubert’s A flat Impromptu, D935 No. 2 provides a perfect farewell (it was, after all, Liszt who considered Schubert “the most poetic of all composers”), particularly when played with such serenity and quite without a nervous telescoping of the rhythm. The transfers have been expertly managed and the delightful accompanying notes are by the pianist himself.
All these performances are a distillation of years of experience, and they provide a salutary lesson for all young pianists anxious for a quick or instant success.'