Leif Ove Andsnes releases Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works (April 11), on heels of U.S. recital tour (March 21–April 1)
(February 2025) — It is almost a quarter century since Leif Ove Andsnes first devoted a recording solely to the music of Franz Liszt, winning both Opus Klassik’s Solo Recording of the Year and France’s Diapason d’Or awards. Now the celebrated Norwegian pianist turns to Liszt’s less familiar sacred music, revealing something of the composer’s deeply held faith on Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works. Due for physical and digital release by Sony Classical on April 11, the new album combines Liszt’s Via Crucis, recorded with the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, with his Consolations for solo piano and two movements from his Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Its release follows Andsnes’s return to New York’s Carnegie Hall (March 25) and other venues on a U.S. recital tour with works by Chopin, Geirr Tveitt, and Grieg (March 21–April 1). This same program showed the pianist to be “an insightful champion” (The Guardian) of Tveitt’s sonata at London’s Wigmore Hall, where his “high musical intelligence and unerring communicative power made this journey of discovery, and rediscovery, both a tonic and a treat” (The Arts Desk, UK). As The New York Times puts it, “You go to a recital by the pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to be as surprised as you are awed.”
Often described as the “first virtuoso,” Franz Liszt is best known today for showpieces so technically challenging that few but he could play them. Yet that is only half the story. At just 35, he retired from public performance to focus on teaching and composing. Thirteen years later he withdrew still further, taking Holy Orders and embarking on a life of religious devotion. By contrast with his earlier, more familiar works, Liszt’s compositions from this period are introspective, searching, and austere. Andsnes, who has lived with the Hungarian composer’s music since childhood, says: “I find Liszt’s religious music fascinating. This is very different music, with so few notes but with a tension and beauty.”
One of the most important and remarkable works of Liszt’s late period is Via Crucis(“The Way of the Cross”) for choir and piano. Depicting the Roman Catholic tradition’s 14 Stations of the Cross, this was only posthumously premiered in 1929. A concentrated ritual drama that ranges in style from liturgical chant to the most expressive chromaticism, Via Crucis is unlike any other work in the repertoire. Likening it to “14 miniature tone poems,” Andsnes explains:
“This is something very different. It is incredible, the journey Liszt made as a composer, from his very flamboyant virtuosic style to [Via Crucis], which is very bare, with so few notes, but still an incredible tension and beauty. It points forward to the 20th century while also building on the tradition of scared music.”
The work’s unusual scoring gave Andsnes the opportunity to continue his longstanding collaboration with the 26 handpicked singers of the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, whose “blend is exquisite, intonation perfect and articulation superlative” (Gramophone). Before making the recording, he and the singers performed Via Crucis in concert last summer at Norway’s Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, of which he is the Founding Director. This allowed them to study the work extensively. Andsnes reflects:
“We live in a world of pain and conflict and Via Crucis offers room for empathy, for philosophical thought, and for the taking-in of different emotions. Audiences seem to be mesmerized by it.”
He completes the album with music from two of Liszt’s solo piano cycles. A mood of thoughtful reflection permeates the Consolations, written shortly before the composer’s retirement from public performance. “I find the Consolations so tender, so intimate, speaking from heart to heart,” says Andsnes. “But still, they have different styles, from the spiritual to the dramatic. They are so wonderfully written for the piano; it always sings.” Liszt’s ten-movement cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses was inspired by the work of early French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine. Andsnes features two movements from the cycle: the “Andante Lagrimoso,” which he considers “full of sorrow,” and the “Miserere, d’après Palestrina.” Written in homage to the great Italian Renaissance composer, this startling movement treats its chant-like theme with an almost improvisatory spontaneity. Andsnes says:
“It ends with an enormous flourish. It’s a relief after all the intimate music we have been through. But it also brings us back to the very beginning of the album, as the Via Crucis begins with a Gregorian chant.”
Click here to listen and/or pre-order Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works and here to learn more about the recording.
Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works represents Andsnes’s second all-Liszt album. Released in 2001 by EMI, the first – Liszt: Piano Recital – was welcomed as “a very modern vision of Liszt, with the most clear touch and control imaginable, especially exquisite in the most rapid pianissimos” (BBC Music). The review continued:
“His shaping and pacing of structures is excellently controlled as well. Too many pianists approach Liszt like a bull in a china shop, but Andsnes has the wisdom and sensibility to hold back and reserve the heights of excitement for the real climaxes. … Breathtaking.”
U.S. solo recital tour: Chopin, Grieg, and Tveitt
Andsnes’s upcoming U.S. recital tour takes him to Philadelphia (March 21), Baltimore(March 23), Cleveland (March 27), St. Paul, MN (March 28), Aliso Viejo, CA (March 30), Berkeley, CA (April 1), and New York’s Carnegie Hall (March 25). As at recent dates in Europe, his program showcases the only surviving piano sonata by his little-known compatriot Geirr Tveitt, alongside Grieg’s sole piano sonata, and – marking Andsnes’s first U.S. performances of the complete set in recital – the poetic miniatures of Chopin’s 24 Preludes. Andsnes’s Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes was named one of the “Best Classical Albums of 2018” (WQXR) and nominated for an International Classical Music Award.
Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
With Norwegian Soloists’ Choir / Grete Pedersen
Label: Sony Classical
Release date: April 11, 2025
Franz LISZT:
Via Crucis for choir and piano
Consolations for solo piano
“Andante Lagrimoso” from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses for solo piano
“Miserere, d’après Palestrina” from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses for solo piano
Leif Ove Andsnes: upcoming engagements
March 7–9
Hitzacker, Germany
Musikwoche Hitzacker
With musicians of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra
March 7
STRAVINSKY: Septet
POULENC: Sextet for Piano and Winds
VILLA-LOBOS: Quintette en forme de Chôros
March 8
Talk: “A Special Relationship”
March 9
HAYDN: Piano Concerto in D (directing from keyboard)
LISZT: Romance oubliée for viola and piano (with Antoine Tamestit, viola)
VIERNE: Piano Quintet
March 10–12: European tour with musicians of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra:
March 10: Luxembourg
March 11: Brussels, Belgium
March 12: London, England (Wigmore Hall; residency)
STRAVINSKY: Septet
VILLA-LOBOS: Quintette en forme de Chôros
POULENC: Sextet for Piano and Winds
VIERNE: Piano Quintet
March 21–April 1: U.S. solo recital tou
March 21: Philadelphia, PA (Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; Perelman Theater)
March 23: Baltimore, MD (Shriver Hall)
March 25: New York, NY (Carnegie Hall)
March 27: Cleveland, OH (Severance Hall)
March 28: St. Paul, MN (Ordway Center)
March 30: Aliso Viejo, CA (Soka Performing Arts Center)
April 1: Berkeley, CA (Cal Performances)
GRIEG: Piano Sonata
G. TVEITT: Piano Sonata No. 29, “Sonata Etere”
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes
April 13 & 19
Baden-Baden, Germany
Easter Festival
Berlin Philharmonic / Klaus Mäkelä
RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3
April 24–26
Prague, Czech Republic
Czech Philharmonic / Jakub Hrůša
GRIEG: Piano Concerto
May 8, 9, & 11
Hamburg, Germany
Hamburg International Music Festival
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Alan Gilbert
DEBUSSY: Fantaisie for piano and orchestra
FRANCK: Variations symphoniques
May 20
Milan, Italy
Piano four-hands recital with Bertrand Chamayou, piano
SCHUBERT: Rondo in A (four-hands)
SCHUBERT: Allegro in A minor, “Lebensstürme” (four-hands)
SCHUBERT: Fugue in E minor (solo)
SCHUBERT: Impromptu D.935 No. 1 (solo)
SCHUBERT: Fantasie in F minor (four-hands)
May 21
London, England
Wigmore Hall (residency)
Piano four-hands recital with Bertrand Chamayou, piano
SCHUBERT: Rondo in A (four-hands)
SCHUBERT: Allegro in A minor, “Lebensstürme” (four-hands)
SCHUBERT: Fugue in E minor (solo)
SCHUBERT: Fantasie in F minor (four-hands)
KURTÁG: Selections from Játékok (solo and four-hands)
May 30 & 31
Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra / Gemma New
HAYDN: Piano Concerto in D
FRANCK: Variations symphoniques
June 11 & 13
Solo recitals in Germany
June 11: Mühlheim, Germany (Ruhr Piano Festival)
June 13: Frankfurt, Germany
Solo recital:
GRIEG: Piano Sonata
G. TVEITT: Piano Sonata No. 29, “Sonata Etere”
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes