KARACHI: One of the nicest ways to spend an evening in Karachi is to be able to listen to the compositions of the Hungarian Franz Lizst, especially when they are played by German pianist Thomas Hitzlberger whose cultural credentials are blue chip.

This visiting virtuoso gave a recital at a local hotel and if one were to sum up the performance in one short phrase it would be — a selection made with perspicacity and compassion and piano playing of brilliance.

Hitzlberger has an exuberant style that emphasises colour and sensuality and the way he drains a score of its emotional juices is marvellously involving. He is privy to the music’s moods, nooks and crannies, never puts a finger wrong and plays with remarkable fluency. In fact the moment his fingers touched the Steinway the audience knew they were in for a real treat and that the evening was going to be special. The recital was divided into two parts — Years of Pilgrimage and Liszt’s pianoforte arrangements of selected arias from the operas of Richard Wagner.

The first six compositions set the mood and tone of the performance. The Cypresses of the Villa d’Este introduced the performer to the audience. The piece had some tricky finger work and intricate phrases. The tone poem At Lake Wallenstadt was simply dripping with jewels and one could almost picture those birds languorously flying above the placid water.

The Canzonetta of Salvador Rosa had a touch of foreboding. Rosa was a Neapolitan artist who painted haunting landscapes overgrown with vegetation, jagged beaches, mountains and caves and his art was often turbulent and rugged. The arias from Wagner’s operas were a world of their own, played with warmth and passion.

I was delighted to find the Todeslied from Tristan und Isolde among the treasure trove which along with Berceuse from Joycelyn by the Frenchman Benjamin Godard are among my favourites.The two sonatas went with a lively grace. The Petrarchan sonnet typically refers to a concept of unattainable love – first developed by Giacomo di Lentini. The second sonata, No 104, has been special ever since I first heard it in a recital in Munich. It reminded me somewhat of my professor C.A.W. Manning, a South African, who headed the international relations department at the LSE in London. One day he said to me in all seriousness. “If you ever make it to that place up in the clouds they call heaven, that is after you have crossed the River Styx, the sort of music you will hear is Un sospiro.” That was my first introduction to Franz Liszt. The Fantasia Quasi Sonata (also Dante Sonata) inspired by Dante demonstrated precision and great muscularity and received the greatest applause. Dante Aligheri, whose Divine Comedy is regarded as the greatest work in Italy and one of the masterpieces of world literature is known as il Sommo Poeta (the supreme poet) in his homeland.

Now a word about Liszt. He was arguably the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century. His music influenced Wagner and Richard Strauss. His pianoforte music was in a class and category of its own. The symphonic poems developed a new art form. He remains a romantic enigma of music, a genius with a touch of the charlatan, a virtuoso with flair, a man generous to colleagues and the young. He will also be remembered for his championship of Wagner in the Weimer years, with its subsequent effect on Brahms and Schumann, thereby causing the great schism in nineteenth century music.

This recital brought back memories of a time in the distant past when pianists Anthony Peebles and Richard Deering, who were sponsored by the British Council, took turns to entertain audiences at the old premises of Goethe Institut. Peebles often played Chopin, with his harp-like arpeggios, and Rachmaninoff, the last of the colourful Russian masters of the nineteenth century with their gift for long and broad melodies imbued with a resigned melancholy.

On one occasion, addressing the audience, he announced with unaffected precision that the two composers he would never play were Chopin and Rachmaninoff, because they didn’t really write music. There was a hush in the hall as dense as the forest. Fortunately, Deering didn’t include Liszt otherwise there might have been a homicide.

The recital was arranged by Dr Tilo Klinner, the German consul general who has done yeoman work in promoting the culture of Germany. One hopes he will continue the surge and that his friend Thomas Hitzlberger will come back soon.