Leslie Howard’s 99-CD set of Liszt’s piano music has recast the Liszt problem for 2011: it’s not that his music is underrated, misconstrued or maligned, it’s that most of it simply hasn’t been heard. With this CD of rarely programmed works, Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire makes his own compellingly listenable – and relatively concise – case for why there’s more to Liszt than Liebestraum. 

However, not all the pieces on the disc are lost gems. Freire opts for one of the least played Hungarian Rhapsodies, the thanklessly stark No 3, which he imbues with a sensitivity the piece probably does not merit. More worthy of revival is the Ballade No 2. This is a fierce and entertaining tussle of Sturm vs Drang, a more rhetorical and grandiloquent work than any of Chopin’s four, but with a lyrical middle section to rival any by the Polish composer (who dubbed Liszt “a clever craftsman without a vestige of talent”). Freire brings an opulent lyricism to these moments of Chopinesque reverie, most notably in the third of the Consolations, based on the opening of Chopin’s D-flat Nocturne, Op 27, No 2. 

Other pieces, such as Au Lac de Wallenstadt from Années de Pèlerinage, do seem a tad inconsequential, but Freire’s clear, singing tone can bring celestial beauty to the slightest work.