Hammer and Tongs Franz Liszt funeral odes - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON 'Orchestra and conductor have all the requisite diablerie.'

The sombre painting on this booklet's front cover is Caspar David Friedrich's Abbey in the Oakwood, or rather part of it. The gaping Gothic window is surrounded by the decaying branches of gaunt trees that yet seek to obliterate the fragmentary building totally. The colour contrasts are yet more stark than in Friedrich's original, so that the procession of monks making its way past a gaping grave towards a massive crucifix marking the sometime entrance to the abbey is hardly visible. It is the moon that casts its baleful light on the sombre scene, but I have no intention of telling you where it has ended up...

FRANZ LISZT

HUNGARY

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

HYPERION