“These two remarkable works were originally issued on two separate records, when they were a pioneering enterprise on Saga’s behalf. Via Crucis is one of Liszt’s most extraordinary compositions, laconic, inward, searching and uncompromising. It makes its gestures succinctly, never developing anything, moving forward swiftly yet with a sense of complete timelessness. Some of the harmony is far ahead of anything achieved even by Wagner (who acknowledged his harmonic indebtedness to Liszt). The Missa Choralis is a smoother, more appealing work, if not so fiercely original…Both works should be more widely known. Gordon Thorne directs a beautiful, idiomatic pair of performances, and there is some penetrating organ playing from Francis Jackson”
Liszt: Via Crucis; Missa Choralis
