Jakob Gimpel plays Liszt's Mephisto Waltz 'live' in 1970

An unissued 1970 German concert performance by the great Polish pianist Jakob Gimpel of Liszt&Mephisto Waltz. While he seems to start off quite carefully, he soon builds things to a fiery fervour to provide a wildly passionate reading with the level of intensity one might expect from the likes of Josef Hofmann or Ignaz Friedman. Although there are immense bursts of sound and dazzling displays of virtuosity throughout the reading, Gimpel also demonstrates his poetic side with glistening tone, a poetic singing line, refined pedal effects, and delicate tonal shadings. This is an old-school-Romantic-style performance the likes of which were rarely heard at the time of this concert in 1970 and is virtually impossible to imagine being heard in a concert hall today, yet which stems from the great Romantic tradition from the era in which the work was written, when highly individual and impassioned readings were expected of performing artists. A thoroughly remarkable recorded document.