From Amazon.com
Liszt's tone poems are "respected" more than loved. It's kind of easy to see why--the thematic material is not always distinguished, and the orchestration--however interesting and experimental--is often just plain screechy. But maybe that's part of the point. As the inventor of the "symphonic poem," Liszt was trying to create a piece of symphonic length and continuity based on the transformation of just one or two themes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but the results are seldom dull. Bernard Haitink's performances are very musical, and they are attractively recorded.
--David Hurwitz
Chronique amazon.fr
Les poèmes symphoniques sont des oeuvres de formes libres, d'inspiration généralement littéraire, et ancrées dans un univers romantique. Quantitativement, ils constituent le legs le plus important de Liszt dans le domaine symphonique. Des premiers opus de 1849 aux ultimes partitions de 1882, le compositeur a donné libre cours à son imagination, et fait figure de véritable créateur du genre. Cette intégrale dirigée par Bernard Haitink est demeurée la plus cohérente de toutes les interprétations enregistrées jusqu'à ce jour.
--Lina Patch
