Franz Liszt (1811-1866)
"Un Cycle imaginaire", 10 mélodies d'après Victor Hugo
"Jeanne d'Arc du bûcher", S 293, d'après Alexandre Dumas
"Oh! Pourquoi donc", S 301a, d'après Karolina Pavlova
Elégie "En ces lieux", S 301b, d'après Etienne Monnier
"Tristesse? J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie", S 327, d'après Alfred de Musset
"Il m'aimait tant!", S 271, d'après Delphine de Girardin
"S"il est un charmant gazon", S 284/1, d'après Victor Hugo (Première version)
"Enfant, si j'étais roi", S 283/1, d'après Victor Hugo (Première version)
"Comment, disaient-ils", S 276/1, d'après Victor Hugo (Première version)

Katharina Konradi, soprano
Daniel Heide, piano

"The 3rd volume of our complete recording of Franz Liszt’s art songs is exclusively devoted to vocal settings of poems in French. Liszt was one of the few Central European composers of his time who not only mastered the French language in addition to German but was also an avid reader of contemporary French poetry. Multilingualism was relatively uncommon in the mid-1800s; Liszt was a rather exceptional polyglot, just like his pupil Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), who composed art songs in each of the six languages she fluently spoke. Liszt’s songs have been handed down to us in several variants and versions. Thus, in this third volume, we once more had to decide whether to select one “definitive” version or offer our listeners the enriching occasion to hear several alternatives. We decided to create an imaginary song cycle of Victor Hugo settings. Admittedly, Liszt never wrote concept-oriented song cycles like those of Schubert or Schumann, but we chose to combine all of his Hugo settings (excepting Gastibelza) in a collage-like succession. In most cases, we have chosen the songs’ last versions. " (Daniel Heide)