By 1840 Liszt had perfected the art of operatic transcription, one that characterised the music but was not dependent on the sequential presentation of it. Indeed, in his transcription of themes from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor he includes music from another Donizetti work, and, in the coda, includes his own thematic material that blends seamlessly together. The Réminiscences de Don Juan, with its technical demands and innovations, stands at the pinnacle of his procedure, not only compacting the material from Mozart’s Don Giovanni but reflecting all the music’s tensions and drama in a heroic demonstration of bravura brilliance.

Konstantin Scherbakov has recorded five albums in this series containing the complete Beethoven symphonies in Liszt’s transcriptions. They can be found in Vols. 15, 18, 19, 21 and 23.

Vol.15 on 8550457 received a three-star review from Penguin Guide: ‘It is Scherbakov’s achievement that he makes Liszt’s piano transcriptions of these Beethoven symphonies sound so pianistic. With wonderfully crisp articulation and fluent passage-work, textures are clarified, and the freshness and energy of the writing are strongly brought out’.