Ernst-Erich Stender an der Großen Orgel der St. Marienkirche zu Lübeck

In 1986 - the centenary of Liszt's death - Leslie Howard gave a series of ten Liszt recitals in London. By carefully selecting only Liszt own compsitions, Howard was able to represent Liszt's entire solo piano work.
Consequently Howard made the largest recording project ever - the complete music for solo piano of Liszt (1985-1999).
All Liszt's versions of his piano music were included, including more than 300 premiere performances and recordings, and pieces unheard since Liszt's lifetime, and also all arrangements of other composers' work. Four discs were given to Liszt's seventeen works for piano and orchestra, about half of which were premiere recordings made from unpublished manuscripts.
The series ran at first to 94 full-length CDs, and earned Howard a place in the Guinness Book Of Records. One bonus disc and two later Cds - New Liszt Discoveries raised the number to 97. Two new discs were recently recorded and will appear in 2010.

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Sawallisch was born in Munich, and studied there privately for composition and pianoforte: at the conclusion of the war, in 1946 he continued his studies at the Munich High School for Music and passed his final examination for conducting.[1] He began his career at the opera house in Augsburg in 1947.[2] There he became first coach and later principal conductor: in 1952-53 he was personal assistant to Igor Markevitch at the International Summer Academy Mozarteum, Salzburg

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The composers of the 19th and 2th centuries were often passionate about popular musical traditions. Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957), Maurice Emmanuel (1862-1938), or Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894) who said from himself: « I rhythm my music with my ‘Auvergnat's clogs » gave tribute to those popular melodies, by harmonising them with creativity, taste and respect. During this onirical evocation of the atmosphere of an evening with Georges Sand in Nohant, or of any evening in the country with firewood in the chimney, the traditional universe and the classical world confront, complete or meet each other in a thorough musical communion.

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Imposing sonic creations make full use of the organ's cavalcade of sounds and colors. Our soloists caress these winsome and fluid French late Romantic pieces. The melodies are sweetly fragrant and the clouds of harmonies, touched with a silvery sheen, expand in the reverberant atmosphere. You could float away on them. Guilmant's Symphony is glorious--the heavens just open up! Hauk and his Ingolstadt organ match the orchestra wave after thrilling wave, contrasted with moments of arching, spinning, mellifluous tunes...Full-throated.

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The Music & Arts label has released a historic recording of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto" from 1945, with Artur Rother conducting, surprisingly in then experimental stereo sound. There is also the faint sound during the performance of distant Royal Airforce Lancaster and Halifax bombers dropping bombs and German anti-aircraft guns shooting. (The RAF attacked at night, during the concert, while the Americans bombed in the daytime.) This, plus the startling presence of stereo, in one of the first stereo recordings, and a performance that is considered magnificent, makes for an unsual combination of art and history. - Music & Arts

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