With [Novacek’s] second Liszt CD,  it is once again quite clear that the future of the young Czech lies in large, virtuoso romantic works, not only thanks to his sure-footed technique or his ability to produce a compact, well-rounded and broad sound, but also because he uses all this in service of a poetic interpretation. Not once does he employ superficial, thundery sounds; on the contrary, he discreetly evokes the individual moods and colours, avoiding over-sensitivity, and creating an excellent balance between pianistic precision and intense emotion.

Frank Siebert

Music                       * * * *

Sound                         * * * * *

Fono Forum 03/2010

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Balance

Spätestens mit dieser zweiten Liszt-CD von Libor Novacek wird sehr deutlich, dass die Zukunft des jungen Tschechen in großen romantischen Virtuosenrepertoire liegt. Und dies nicht nur, weil er über eine sichere Technik verfügt und einen kompakten, voluminös-runden Ton zu erzeugen versteht, sondern weil er all seine reichen Mittel ganz in den Dienst einer poetischen Gestalltung setzt. Nie ensteht der Eindruck des oberflächlich Gedonnerten, dezent etfaltet er die einzelnen Stimmungsbilder, ohne ins alzu Gefühlige auszudriften, und schafft eine excellente Ballance zwischen pianistischen Finish ind intensiver Expression.

Frank Siebert

Musik                        * * * *

Klang                        * * * * *

Fono Forum 03/2010

- – SUPERSONIC – -

Czech pianist Libor Novacek has made himself a solid reputation as a Liszt interpreter. This label is proved to be true in his CD “Suisse” from “Années de Pèlerinage”, not only because of his dazzling virtuosity, but because he brings such emotion to Liszt’s music that there can hardly be room for competition. Novacek’s playing is poetic and often meditative, and together with his rich palette of colours and wonderful nuances, these pieces become quite special and beautiful. Never sentimental, each is imbued with great depth and feeling. The same can be said for the Consolations, where we find none of the usual over-sentimental exuberance, but rather an interpretation full of poetry and refinement. It is certainly not every day that one hears such introspective Liszt!  

RéF

Source: http://www.pizzicato.lu/reviews.pdf

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Introspectiver Liszt

Der tschechische Pianist Libor Novacek hat sich als Liszt-Interpret einen guten Namen gemacht. Mit ‘Suisse’ aus den ‘Années de Pèlerinage’ macht er diesem Etikett alle Ehre, und das nicht, weil er als Virtuose nur so glänzen würde, sondern weil er in Liszt Musik eine Sensibilität bringt, die in dieser Qualität nicht viel Konkurrenz hat. Novaceks poesievolles und oft meditatives Spiel, seine Farbmischungen, sein wunderbares Nuancieren, all das macht aus diesen Aufnahmen etwas ganz Besonderes und sehr Schönes, zumal weil jedes Gefühl echt und tief empfunden wirkt und nicht sentimental aufgesetzt. Das gilt auch für die ‘Consolations’, die ihre Wirkung nicht aus Gefühlsüberschwang, sondern aus Raffinement und Poesie beziehen. So introspektiv hört man Liszt nicht alle Tage!

RéF

- – SUPERSONIC – -

F. Liszt: Années de pèlerinage (Suisse), Consolations; Libor Novacek Klavier;

1 CD Landor Records LAN 290; 11/08 (79’04)

Source: http://www.pizzicato.lu/reviews.pdf

Landor Records LAN 290

Libor Novacek already has a reputation as a fine and sensitive artist. He makes a lovely sound – rounded, mellow, powerful where needed, and never for a moment ugly.

This recording of the first book of Années de pèlerinage begins with a superb account of ‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’, the long, slow final crescendo is wonderfully sustained, followed by some ear-bewitching pedalling in ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’. And Novacek has no problem commanding the great spans of ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, which unfolds with brooding grandeur. 

If you like your Liszt-playing on the thoughtful side, then Novacek’s Années de pèlerinage is worth consideration.

Performance: ****

Sound: ****

Malcolm Hayes

Věroslav Němec

Harmonie 2010/03

….One very significant clue to Novacek’s particular success is discernible in the first piece of the set, Chapelle de Guillaume Tell.

…As one listens to ‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’ played by Berman, Brendel or Ciccolini, the mind wanders and the rhetorical gesture, inaccurately rendered, sounds vapid. As Novacek delivers it, we understand, metaphorically speaking, precisely what Liszt is talking about, and exactly why he chose to begin his journey through the marvels of Switzerland in Tell’s chapel.

…Of course many more attributes combine to make Novacek’s Swiss Année so compellingly beautiful. His sense of pace is leisurely and alluring, making the crystal-clear waters of Lac de Wallendstadt, marked Andante placido, not only placid but a veritable balm for the agitated spirit.

…As if all this were not enough, Novacek crowns his Années with the Six Consolations in exquisitely lyrical performances of the utmost sincerity.

…Very highly recommended.

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Read the whole article below

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International Record Review

by Patrick Rucker

Liszt: Suisse

Années de pèlerinage  Première année, S160, Suisse, Six Consolations, S172
Libor Novacek (piano)
Landor Records LAN290 (full price, 1 hour 19 minutes).

Website:  www.landorrecords.co.uk

Engineer: Tony Faulkner

Producer: Jeremy Hayes
Dates:      November 17th-19th, 2008

Comparisons:
Années de pèlerinage:
Berman (DG) 471 447-2 (1977, three discs)
Brendel (Philips) 462 312-2 (1986, two discs)
Ciccolini (EMI Classics) 3 67906-2 (1982, five discs)
Grimwood (SFZ Music) SFZM0208 (2008, two discs, rev. Mar 2009)
Despite the general familiarity of Années de pèlerinage, it is encountered on recordings and at recitals most frequently in excerpts. In more than 50 years of going to concerts, I’ve heard the first two books ‘Switzerland’ and ‘Italy’ played as a cycle only once, by that intrepid Lisztian Alfred Brendel at a Carnegie Hall recital in the late 1970s. The entire cycle (three books, plus Venezia e Napoli, a supplement to the second volume), has been recorded rarely enough, with the sets of Lazar Berman and Aldo Ciccolini probably best known. Interestingly, neither Brendel nor Bolet assayed the craggy peaks of the third Année in the recording studio. Liszt’s Years of Pilgrimage, brimful with inspired and beautifully realized music, still represents relatively untrammelled territory for artists possessing that special blend of imagination, poetic temperament, emotional range, subtlety, rhetorical eloquence and, of course, supreme technical mastery.

The Prague-born, British-trained pianist Libor Novacek possesses all these qualities in abundance. The warm critical response that greeted his traversal of the second Année: Italie in 2006 (reviewed in January 2007) makes this new release the object of some anticipation. One very significant clue to Novacek’s particular success is discernible in the first piece of the set, Chapelle de Guillaume Tell. Liszt plunges into the piece, simultaneously raising the curtain on the entire set, with a chordal proclamation, Lento, in common time rhythmically notated: quarter rest, quarter, double-dotted quarter, bar line, whole note. This ‘motto’ or kernel from which the entire piece evolves is bound with a legato ligature in both hands. The rhythmic formula is then repeated, except that the legato ligature extends only to the sixteenth, which is then followed by a double bar, and a new legato ligature begins with the long ‘arrival’ chord. Novacek plays this figure exactly as Liszt wrote it, scrupulously observing the phrase shape, and lifting both hands and pedal at the rest. Surely this is not so remarkable!

In fact it is. Lazar Berman plays the same bars, with his characteristically sumptuous tone, without ever lifting the pedal once. Brendel’s voicing of the chords is more sensitive than Berman’s, but he also fails to lift the pedal during the rest. (Perhaps this is one of those instances that Brendel writes about in other contexts, where the pianist gives his audience a ‘visual cue’, by change of demeanour or posture. If so, it’s not surprising that such a visual cue doesn’t translate to a sound recording.) Finally, Aldo Ciccolini does observe the rests surrounding the opening motto but then, inexplicably, drives calmly through the motto’s second iteration, ignoring ligature break and double bar. No room here to expatiate here on fashion trends in music-making. Ciccolini, born in 1925, Berman in 1930 and Brendel in 1931 are of that generation of musicians who came to prominence in the years following the Second World War. With rare exceptions string players and conductors as well as pianists; only the wind players are exempt because they must breathe!  It may be said of them, in the way that nature abhors a vacuum, these musicians abhorred silence, even those silences clearly indicated with rests by the composer.

As one listens to ‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’ played by Berman, Brendel or Ciccolini, the mind wanders and the rhetorical gesture, inaccurately rendered, sounds vapid. As Novacek delivers it, we understand, metaphorically speaking, precisely what Liszt is talking about, and exactly why he chose to begin his journey through the marvels of Switzerland in Tell’s chapel. With punctuation restored to the topic sentence of the  paragraph, so to speak, what had seemed desultory and vague stands revealed as an utterance of rare eloquence.

Of course many more attributes combine to make Novacek’s Swiss Année so compellingly beautiful. His sense of pace is leisurely and alluring, making the crystal-clear waters of Lac de Wallendstadt, marked Andante placido, not only placid but a veritable balm for the agitated spirit. Liszt’s evocation of an alpine storm, ‘Orage’, sheds its familiar guise as a piano tour de force, to emerge as the sound portrait of a genuinely terrifying natural phenomenon.

Infinite degrees of pianissimo shadings enhance the simple rusticity of the ‘Pastorale’ and coax the faint sound of distant bells from Geneva as though through a fog. Rhetorical aptness is again the focus in ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, which seems less a case study in the numbness of depression than Obermann’s plaintive search for existential meaning. The most refined blend of legato and secco articulation captures the geysers and spray of ‘Au bord d’un source’ in a dazzling display of light and colour. As if all this were not enough, Novacek crowns his Années with the Six Consolations in exquisitely lyrical performances of the utmost sincerity.

Landor has reproduced Novacek’s healthy, sumptuous sound with great clarity. All three books of Années de pèlerinage, played by Daniel Grimwood on an 1851 Erard piano, has been released recently (it was enthusiastically reviewed by Robert Matthew-Walker in March 2009). Though I’ve not yet heard it, it is probably this recording to which Novacek’s should be compared, rather than to those of his illustrious predecessors, whom he has, in so many ways, already surpassed. Very highly recommended.

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