From the Jun 10 – Jun 16, 2004 issue

Music

Classical, Jazz, & Avant

Mark Salman Plays Liszt

by Christopher DeLaurenti

A slender-fingered, piano-breaking virtuoso, Franz Liszt (1811-1886) barnstormed Europe playing piano music so voluptuous, so convulsive, that enraptured audiences screamed and swooned. He nobly grappled with publishers indifferent to his music and gallivanted through a host of romantic liaisons with the rich and titled. So goes Liszt stereotype.

Several weeks ago I was fortunate to hear Seattle pianist Mark Salman tackle a daunting program of Liszt's solo piano music. I was nailed to my seat. Hunched over the piano, Salman is fearless and bold, pounding out fearsomely grandiose chords, yet in a trice, he's acutely aware of a suddenly emerging lyrical line and eloquently shapes notes with supple pedaling that most pianists would envy.

Salman is on a mission to change the image of Liszt. In one of his encyclopedic program notes, Salman writes, "I have always been attracted not only to the colossal emotional power of his music, but also to its extraordinary range and diversity and to his fearless exploration of new harmonic and formal worlds, in his final works even anticipating the music of the 20th century. Of all the great Romantic Era composers he was the one who most emulated Beethoven in believing that music had no expressive bounds. Liszt wrote a tremendous amount of music, much of it rarely heard; in this series I am trying to give audiences a chance to appreciate the true range of what he accomplished and to help dispel the many misconceptions about his music." This eight-concert cycle resumes in October, so get your Liszt fix now. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI

Mark Salman performs the music of Franz Liszt from the Ultra-Romantic to the Avant Garde Fri June 11 (University Christian Church, 4731 15th Ave NE, 522-0169), 7:30 pm, $10/$20.

chris@delaurenti.net

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