Liszt for Two: Hungarian Rhapsodies for Piano Four-Hands; Mephisto Waltz for Two Pianos. Georgia and Louise Mangos, piano. Cedille Records CDR 90000 052.(Review)

Liszt for Two: Hungarian Rhapsodies for Piano Four-Hands; Mephisto Waltz for Two Pianos. Georgia and Louise Mangos, piano. Cedille Records CDR 90000 052.

We are all more or less familiar with the orchestral arrangements of a half-dozen of Franz Liszt's 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies for Piano, but what is less well known is that he adapted them for piano duos (one piano, four hands), too. Just when or why he made the new duet arrangements is not known, but as the accompanying booklet explains, he did play them with students in his later years. A handy chart in the booklet provides the new numbering of the duos, as well as of the orchestral versions. The original piano solos to get the duo and orchestral treatments are Nos. 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, and 14.

The Mangos sisters, Georgia and Louise, play the works with appropriate gypsy flair, although it turns out that none of the tunes Liszt employed were genuine folk songs at all but "popular light music that the gypsies had transformed into their own unique performing style." In any case, the Mangos ladies perform it with an effortless spirit, but not without a degree of ...