PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

LESLIE HOWARD
Leslie Howard has been described as ‘a master of a tradition of pianism in serious danger of
dying out’ (The Guardian).
Born in Australia but resident in London since 1972, Howard is a familiar figure as a soloist
and ensemble player at numerous international festivals. With a vast array of concertos, he
has played with many of the great orchestras of the world and worked with many
distinguished conductors, Claudio Abbado, Arthur Fiedler, Vernon Handley, Hiroyuki Iwaki,
Sir Charles Mackerras and Fritz Rieger among them. Howard’s work as a composer
encompasses opera, orchestral music, chamber music and songs, and his facility in
completing unfinished works has resulted in commissions as diverse as a new realisation of
Bach’s Musical Offering (which he orchestrated and conducted in Finland in 1990), and
completions of Mozart’s String Quartet movement K464a, Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No 4 and
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Sonata in F minor. Recent commissions include a set of 24 Classical
Preludes for piano which he has recorded for Cavendish Music (Boosey & Hawkes) and
Missa Sancti Petri for double mixed choir and organ for St Peter’s, Eaton Square, London.
Recordings by Leslie Howard include music by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky,
Granados, Franck, Grainger, Glazunov and Rubinstein. Most important of all, since 1985,
Leslie Howard has been engaged on the largest recording project ever undertaken by a solo
pianist – nothing less than the complete solo piano music of Liszt, a project which it is
estimated will take fifteen years to complete and total some 80 compact discs on the
Hyperion label. By autumn 1996 Howard had completed 62 of them.
The importance of the Liszt project cannot be overemphasized: it encompasses world
premiere recordings, including much music still unpublished and works unheard since Liszt's
lifetime. So far, Howard has been awarded a Grand Prix du Disque for no fewer than five
volumes of the series – most recently for Volume 24.
If you have enjoyed this recording perhaps you would like a catalogue listing the many others available on the
Hyperion and Helios labels. If so, please write to Hyperion Records Ltd, PO Box 25, London SE9 1AX, England, or
E-mail us at info@hyperion-records.co.uk, and we will be pleased to post you one free of charge.
The Hyperion catalogue can also be accessed on the Internet at http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk It includes an index
of all of Liszt’s piano music in order of S number, with details of all recordings issued in the Liszt series to date.
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