In the Symphony… the long crescendos build up a tremendous head of steam, while Noseda handles Liszt's occasionally abrupt harmonic transitions with tact and sensitivity.

Volume 2 in Chandos's series of Liszt's orchestral works includes the Faust Symphony, his crowning masterpiece, in a performance of supreme clarity and assurance. To achieve such stylistic empathy and lucidity in an hour-long force-of-nature work (the conductor has dropped the choral ending), showing Liszt's transformation of themes and characters at its height, is a daunting achievement.
Time and again you are made to realise that accusations (still made in some quarters) of theatricality, of fustian and bombast, are largely the result of inadequate performances that put superficial display before true musicianship. Gianandrea Noseda immediately engages you in Faust's opening and troubled questioning with the promise of epic variations to come. Gretchen's radiance emerges truly andante soave, dolcissimo e tranquillo e molto, allowing the music's gently sighing lines and phrases to contrast to maximum effect with Mephistopheles's snapping accentuation and glittering diablerie. Indeed, so precise and articulate is the playing that you are left to wonder if Liszt, like Milton in Paradise Lost, was of the Devil's party without realising his ironic bias or inclination.
Such a possibility is, however, erased in Liszt's final symphonic poem, Von der Wiege biszum Grabe, where the opening 'Cradle' and closing fade-out suggest the composer's vision at its most ethereal and elevated. Chandos's sound is superb; you could hardly wish for more eloquent advocacy.

Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic have already shown their mettle in their first volume, and it looks as though a highly collectable set is in the making