Libor Novacek’s play is distinguished by constant qualities; poeticism, transparency, a high culture of touches and light technique. From this point of view the first volume of Lizst’s Annees de Pelerinage and Consolations seem “tailor-made” for him. In the first volume of his Annees de Pelerinage Liszt placed pieces inspired by his travels in Switzerland. The nine numbers of this cycle may be seen as diary entries in which the composer recorded his impressions of the Swiss countryside and his reading of famous works of romantic literature. In several of those pieces we hear effective onomatopoetic effect: the splashing of water, thunder, a gale or the chiming of bells, and in two pieces we even encounter stylisations of Swiss folk music. Although Annees de Pelerinage have a grand, typically Lizstian piano texture, when listening to Libor Novacek we simply do not notice the technical demands that the composer places on the performer. The pianist plays even the hardest passages with admirable lightness – in his conception Lizst’s Switzerland is an idyllic landscape with subtle colour reflections in the water of mountain lakes (the one exception in this idyllic world is the fifth piece entitled Orage/Storm, which is the most spectacular and technically the most difficult piece in the whole cycle). Although these are supremely romantic compositions, Libor Novacek never descends to cheap romantic effects. He relies not on overblown rubatos and drastic dynamic contrasts but on delicate nuances of touch and on large space of time that allow Last’s music to “fade” in the listener’s own mind. The sense of extraordinary transparency is attained not just by the pianist’s light technique but by effective and pure pedalisation. (If were to choose a piece from this cycle as an “emblem” of Libor Novacek’s approach it would be No. 8 Le mal du Pays/Homesickness, which is truly unique both in terms of touch and expression.) In comparison with Annees de Pelerinage, the cycle Consolations is technically incomparably the most accessible, and also among the most frequently performed of Liszt’s pieces. After hearing these small “songs without words”, we shall be left in no doubt at all that Libor Novacek is really “at homo” in the world of delicate lyricism.
Věroslav Němec
