Jen Jand - Complete Piano Music 2

The 12 Transcendental Etudes are the ultimate test of quasi-orchestral virtuosity and of the capacity to achieve nobility and true eloquence. Jandó perhaps lacks diabolic frisson in the more ferocious numbers but his performances, overall, aren't disfigured by willful, sensational attributes or hysteria. No-1 is an impressive, dramatically pointed, curtain-raiser, and he can hell-raise with assurance in 'Mazeppa'. His 'Feux follets' hardly sparks with the brilliance of, say, some of the full-blooded accounts of certain Russian artists, but even when it hardly modulates from study to tone-poem it's still more than capable (higher praise than you might think where such intricacy is concerned). He flashes an impressive rapier at the start of 'Eroica' and there's plenty of swagger and facility in the so-called 'Appassionata' étude. 'Chasse-neige', too, proceeds with a fine sense of it's menacing start to a howling, elemental uproar before returning to distant thunder. Jandó is less assured in introspection, yet it has to be said that all-encompassing versions of the Transcendental Etudes are hard to come by. Jandó is impressively recorded.

1) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: I. Preludio in C Major: Presto
2) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: II. Etude in A minor: Molto Vivace
3) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: III. Paysage (Landscape) in F Major: Poco Adagio
4) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: IV. Mazeppa in D minor: Allegro
5) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: V. Feux Follets (Will O' the Wisps) in B Flat Major: Allegretto
6) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: VI. Vision in G minor: Lento
7) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: VII. Eroica in E Flat Major: Allegro
8) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: VIII. Wilde Jagd (Wild Hunt) in C minor: Presto Furioso
9) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: IX. Ricordanza (Remembrance) in a Flat Major: Andantino Improvisato
10) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: X. Etude in F minor: Allegro Agitato Molto
11) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: XI. Harmonies Du Soir (Evening Harmonies) in D Flat Major: Andantino
12) Etudes D' Execution Transcendante S139-R2B: XII. Chasse-Neige (Snow-Whirls) in B Flat minor: Andante Con Moto