This is the third CD in a critically acclaimed series entitled ‘Liszt: The Sound of Weimar’ which NCA is releasing as part of the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the great Hungarian composer’s birth. These recordings are by the Vienna Academy Orchestra, with the esteemed Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck, and as with the previous two discs, the music on Volume 3 is performed on original instruments of the 19th Century.

Liszt wrote 13 symphonic poems in all, and the three featured here, ‘Hunnenschlacht’, ‘Mazeppa’, and ‘Hungaria’, are listed as being numbers 11, 9, and 6 respectively.

The orchestral project ‘The Sound of Weimar’ will include all the orchestral works of Franz Liszt in the original orchestration of the live premieres in Weimar. The recordings will all be made at performances in seven concerts during 2011 and 2012 by the Vienna Academy Orchestra under the direction of Martin Haselböck. The first two CDs in the series were the Dante Symphony (60234), which was released at the end of last year, and a disc featuring the Symphonic Poems ‘Les Preludes’, ‘Orpheus’, and the ‘Berg-Symphonie’ (60246), which was released last month.

The renowned Austrian conductor Martin Haselböck is the musical director of Musica Angelica in Santa Monica, California, and the musical director and founder of the Vienna Academy Orchestra. He is also a professor at the University of Vienna, where he teaches organ.