Instrumental recitals are hardly the vogue these days. Piano recitals, once the mainstay of the classical-music business, are now an endangered species. And among the restricted number of piano recitals given, few are devoted to the music of one composer. When such specialized programs take place, they are usually devoted to the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, or Chopin. Recitals of the once-celebrated Franz Liszt (1811–86) are practically unheard of nowadays. Furthermore, remarkably few works by Liszt (and always the same few) are currently available on CD by celebrated pianists.

I had never heard of the Hungarian pianist Christina Kiss before seeing her tiny recital advertisement in The New York TimesSunday “Arts & Leisure” section in early December. There, almost completely submerged by the florid notices for Christmas and Chanukah musical events, was a box announcing an all-Liszt recital, part of an eleven-year series of forty-five recitals comprising all the more than a thousand compositions (the number is approximate and subject to all kinds of scholarly quibbling) of the great nineteenth-century virtuoso poet of the piano. Though she is giving these recitals, Miss Kiss does not seem to be recording the Liszt piano works, and no recordings by her seem to be listed in the current Schwann/Opus catalogue. Miss Kiss’s advertised program consisted of a first part containing several short pieces, some of which were unfamiliar to me, and a second part containing but one work, the Liszt transcription—for a mere two hands at one piano!—of