Donizetti Operatic Reminiscences and Transcriptions

"New York City-based pianist William Wolfram is on splendid form throughout these technically difficult, emotionally demanding and physically taxing works. He expertly negotiates the wide gamut of intense emotions. I was able to identify: the stormy power of anger, the hurt of jealousy, the immediacy of the dark melancholy of abandonment, the turbulent emotional depths of the heartbreaking pain of grief, the sensitivity of the rapture and elation of love and the surging energy of the dread of impending violence"
(MusicWeb April 2008)

This is Vol.27 in Naxos' ongoing complete piano works of Liszt, a project of daunting proportions not likely to be duplicated by any other record company. I've not found many of Liszt's operatic reworkings very captivating, because his references to the source themes are often oblique and hard to find under all the self-serving pianistic embellishments and fireworks for their own sake. This is not the case here, fortunately - perhaps because Donizetti was such a superb melodist. Wolfram's playing is a model of stylish clarity, rendered in superb audio.
--Review by Giv Cornfield, November 2007