Complete Piano Music: Meditations

'A mood and an atmosphere of devotion … played with the appropriate restraint and dedication' (Classic CD)

'The detailed program book provides not only the texts and translations, but the original music of the plainchants as well' (Fanfare, USA)

This is one of the more unusual volumes in Leslie Howard's survey of Liszt's solo piano music. The Responsories and Antiphons, S30, are settings of plainchant from the Liber Usualis to which Liszt has added simple harmonies. The works are listed in Grove as being choral, but they are hardly suitable for performance as such and Leslie Howard is of the view that various indications in the manuscript indicate that Liszt envisaged keyboard performance.
The resulting music is contemplative in mood and has an almost mesmerizing quality to it. To assist the listener we have printed all of the chants, with their Latin texts and translations, in the accompanying booklet.