{"id":12475,"date":"2013-05-16T06:11:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T11:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=12475"},"modified":"2013-05-16T06:11:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T11:11:33","slug":"keyboard-thursday-album-review-nothing-exceeds-like-christopher-orileys-liszt-excess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/05\/16\/keyboard-thursday-album-review-nothing-exceeds-like-christopher-orileys-liszt-excess\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Thursday album review: Nothing exceeds like Christopher O&#8217;Riley&#8217;s Liszt excess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/oriley.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12477\" alt=\"oriley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/oriley.jpg\" width=\"630\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/oriley.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/oriley-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Spring 2013 Over-the-Top Piano Album Award goes to National Public Radio host, pianist and inveterate arranger Christopher O&#8217;Riley and his riotous pile of transcriptions released by Oxingale Records as <em>O&#8217;Riley&#8217;s Liszt<\/em>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/liszt.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12478\" alt=\"liszt\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/liszt.jpg\" width=\"248\" height=\"287\" \/><\/a>O&#8217;Riley is probably best known south of the border for his transcriptions of Radiohead songs, which he propagated by playing them on his radio show, <em>From the Top<\/em>. He&#8217;s been crossing over to and from pop to classical for most of his life, but, in case this sets up any doubts, he is a very serious pianist.<\/p>\n<p>He pours every ounce of his prodigious technique into five transcriptions and fantasies by Franz Liszt, the crown jewel being five movements of <em>Symphonie Fantastique<\/em> by Hector Berlioz. And O&#8217;Riley can&#8217;t resist adding coloured sprinkles on top, in the form of his own adjustments and embellishments.<\/p>\n<p>The effect is sometimes overwhelming, always awe-inspiring. Is all this work really being done by 10 fingers?<\/p>\n<p>A lot of his piano sound is big and percussive, but O&#8217;Riley is also capable of an elegant sweetness. But this is still for the listener who wants their ear-hairs to be provoked, not just teased.<\/p>\n<p>The other Liszt reimaginings on the album are the <em>Don Juan Fantasy<\/em>, Schumann&#8221;s <em>Fr\u00fclingsnacht<\/em>, the Prelude and Liebestod from <em>Tristan und Isolde<\/em> and Schubert&#8217;s <em>Fr\u00fclingsglaube<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There is a Blu-Ray complement of music videos.<\/p>\n<p>Check it all out <a href=\"http:\/\/oxingalerecords.com\/2013\/03\/14\/coming-soon-orileys-liszt\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. This is the fourth movement of the <em>Symphonie Fantastique<\/em>:<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vxU-OoP0bz8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spring 2013 Over-the-Top Piano Album Award goes to National Public Radio host, pianist and inveterate arranger Christopher O&#8217;Riley and his riotous pile of transcriptions released by Oxingale Records as O&#8217;Riley&#8217;s Liszt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,77,36,47,51,52,1],"tags":[6451,206,780,1981,2549,6468,6471],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/05\/oriley.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-3fd","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12475"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}