Liszt: Sonata in B Minor (Zimerman)

A stupendous recording of what is (by academic consensus, at least) the most important post-Beethoven sonata. Along with Andre Laplante’s recording this is probably one of the pinnacles of classical Romantic-era pianism. (Zimerman went through 76 takes before he managed to get a recording of the Sonata he was satisfied with.) The structural ingenuity of this piece is basically unmatched among the large-scale piano works of the period; the sonata opens with a deliciously harmonically ambiguous descent, and ends with a tritone harmonic leap that manages to sound kind of beautiful. The sonata is constructed from five (or, depending on your choice of paper, four, or seven, or nine) motivic elements that are woven into an enormous musical architecture. The motivic are relentlessly transformed throughout the work to suit the musical context of the moment. A theme that in one context sounds menacing and even violent, is then transformed into a beautiful melody (compare 0:55, 8:38, 22:22, 26:02). This tec