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All these works were used in the documentary ‘Icon in B Minor’, which was shown on Television New Zealand in November 1996. The programme features Michael Houstoun talking about Franz Liszt and giving a complete performance of the Sonata in B Minor. Some of Michael Houstoun’s observations on the composer which he made in the documentary follow:
“Essentially what I feel I know of Liszt, who Liszt is and who Liszt was, and those parts of me that are like, maybe, parts of Liszt, is through the music.”
“I play the music. It resonates inside me. It wakes things up in me, and I think it does that because things in me are the same as the things that were in Liszt when he wrote. Or whatever inspired him somehow connects with me too. So, in a way, I don’t have to know anything about him: all I have to have is his music.”
“I say [music]is a language. I say it does communicate some sort if information, but I say it’s a spiritual language; it communicates information to people’s spirits through the artistic spirit. And probably for me, the most important aspect of that information is that it is non-verbal. It is an infinitely more direct communication than words, somehow, can ever be.
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Recorded in the Illot Concert Chamber, Wellington, New Zealand, January 1996
Piano Steinway D
Producer & Engineer John Button
Music Associate Tim Bridgewater
Technical Associate Peter Ramutenas
Mastering & Editing John Button & Frank Douglas
Booklet notes Ian Dando
Executive Producer Russell Armitage
Design Leask Associates |
