Screen shot of Vanessa Benelli Mosell playing Liszt.

As I’m pulled more and more under the influence of the musical blog of Kaz, YouTube videos of performances by the composers he highlights enchant me with greater and greater frequency. Here I offer his post on Franz Liszt, the native Hungarian composer of the most gorgeously sensual piano music. Kaz regrets that Liszt, who died in 1886, was never recorded playing the piano. Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, which would have enabled such a recording, but using it to record a musical performance was not common until the 1890s. This is indeed a sad accident of history.

But history made up for its oversight in 2007 with a high-definition video recording of Liszt’s “Liebestraum No. 3 (Love Dream)” played by Vanessa Benelli Mosell. “Regia e direzione artistica Pietro Tagliafferi,” says the video – “Under the artistic direction” I assume in my ignorance of Italian that it says – “of Pietro Tagliaferri.” It goes without saying that Mosell plays Liszt to sweet perfection. Her beauty, her arms, her fingers, her dress, her piano, the floor upon which it sits, the room in which she plays are presented with such loveliness that I urge all readers to luxuriate in this video, to indeed click the “full screen” button so that the beauty is fully in your face. Ahh! Liszt in exaltation! Brava! Grande bellissima! Or, if much of the credit for the beauty that surrounds the beauty of the music and the beauty of the pianist belongs to Maestro Tagliaferri, well then – Bravo! Grand bellissimo!

I must say these Kaz posts are too much – too fine, too fascinating, too beautiful, too addictive. Give me more!