Grieg: Piano Concerto: Liszt: Pianoconcertono1; Hungarian Fantasy

Georges Cziffra, Orchestre National De L'ortf/georges Tzipine, André CluytensICA Classics ICAC 5079 ****

There are those who see the performance of music as an act of service, with musicians always subservient to the wishes of composers. There are others who see the matter more as a kind of transfer of ownership, with performers taking full possession in their own terms of the raw material.

The Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra (1921-94) was definitely of the second disposition. In the 1950s he became the gold-standard for hair-flying Liszt playing. The live performances captured here all date from 1959 and give a good flavour of Cziffra's unfettered, risk-taking approach. And, if your blood pressure can take the strain, the freedom of his best studio recordings of the same period is even more impressive. url.ie/e6sy