LISZTOMANIA

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This album is overly disappointing. Even Wakeman himself has said 'it stinks'. It is mediocre at best and weak in most places. Most of the music here is dark, with a few ballads fit in it. The ballads, while pretty, are uninspired, and the dark songs are done better in Judas, Jane Seymour, and other songs.

Only for completionists, do not buy!

My Grade : A Big Fat F

This record is pretty different from Wakeman's usual progressive work: the songs here have almost all a different style: from classical music to floating mellotron ballads, passing by clavinet pop rock and piano solos, the repertoire is broad. Roger Daltrey's ordinary voice can be heard on the simpler songs; there is another singer on "Excelsior song" that almost sounds like a crooner. The music does not sound like a movie soundtrack. There are some very good & bombastic orchestral arrangements. However some of the Wakeman's fans could be quite disappointed: the often pop compositions are not really complex: they are just slightly progressive!

Rating: 3.5 stars

This is just the kind of an LP that you see in Red Cross circulation centre costing 1 euro and immediately decide to buy it for curiosity, knowing very well that musically it probably stinks. I did so, but my curiosity was more due to the Ken Russell film than Wakeman. The sleeve is full of wild pictures from the film (starring Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt, featuring Wakeman as a viking cyborg!). Naturally I read what allmovie.com says about it, and it gives very bad review. It's easy to believe, with or without this soundtrack, that it's one hell of a crazy rubbish adult-fairytale film, extremely visual but nearly brainless. Russell does have more valuable films too, and if THEY are not shown in TV anymore either, there's no slightest reason to wish for seeing this one sometimes.

There's not much to say about the music. Wakey has arranged well-known pieces by Liszt and Richard Wagner into a pretentious pop opera style, with some little pieces of his own Lyrics are mainly by Daltrey (THE WHO), who is the main singer; one track is sung by Linda Lewis and one by Paul Nicholas. Must be some B-class actors... But the music is not so VERY bad (if not very good either), and it does have a certain value of interest. Therefor it just reaches into two stars from me.

Terrible movie, decent music and good performances

Progressive Rock fans are hard to understand, RICK WAKEMAN is an icon of the genre and one of the men who has done more for the music "we love", I rarely find a Proghead that didn't enjoyed "Close to the Edge" and at least two or three WAKEMAN albums, in every poll he's considered among the best and most popular keyboardists in history.

With 10% of this merits, any POP artist is considered an untouchable legend, but many of us who talk hours about our love for Prog, are the same ones who blame good old Rick as direct guilty of the first debacle of Symphonic Prog.

We shout "close minded" when anybody dares to admit he doesn't like "Thriller" or "Never Mind the Bollocks" but we say that "Lisztomania is crap and most nod in approval. Now, I admit this soundtrack is not a masterpiece in the level of "Six Wives of Henry the VIII", "Criminal Record" or "Myths & Legends", but it's a good chance to listen one of the best keyboardists in Rock history giving excellent performances on arrangements of Wagner and Liszt music.

If this wasn't enough, Roger Daltrey (A living Rock legend), the competent Paul Nicholas (Cousin Kevin in Tommy), The National Philharmonic Orchestra and The English Rock Ensemble are part of this album.

I agree that the movie is ridiculous, because it's like watching "Tommy" in the role of FRANZ LISZT facing WAKEMAN as the Nordic God Thor, but we are here because of the music, not the movie...and I believe that the music is not bad.

Apart from the usual clean piano performance, Rick plays a killer Moog in songs like "Master Race" or "Rape, Pillage & Clap" plus the memorable "Free Song" in which gives a lesson in the use of Synthesizers.

If this was one of his boring 80's New Age albums, I would be the first one to rate it low, but this is RICK WAKEMAN in 1975 at the peak of his career and the performances are above the average. The least "The Cape Crusader" deserves is respect and no less than 3 stars on this release.

Well, my chief reason to purchase the cassette version of this album when it was released was because of Rick's pervious albums and also his collaboration with Roger Daltry who came from another stream of rock music. Unfortunately I was so disappointed, overall, with this soundtrack album. Of course I have never watched the film as it's not my hobby; so I only focus on the music this soundtrack presents. One thing that made me play the cassette at that time because of 'Peace AT Last' that became one of major hits in the seventies: many radio stations aired this song alone and the presenter always mentioned Lisztomania as the song title instead of Peace AT Last.

That was then .... And later I found this album interesting. When I found that I had not reviewed this yet at this site, I then played this soundtrack again. Now I can see the joy of the music offered here. Yes there are many disjointed segments performed here and there but I fully understand why - because this is the soundtrack. It would be great watching the movie so that I can appreciate better. Having listened this soundtrack especially with those vocal parts by Roger, I can imagine how actually if Rick has had Roger to sing on his previous works with Ashley Holt. It would be great I believe. I can't imagine The Prisoner being sung by Roger Daltry.

Another good point about this soundtrack is the artwork: it's excellent!

Overall, this is a good music performed collaboratively by Rick and Roger. You should not expect this sounds similar with his previous albums like The Myths and Legends of King Arthur or Journey. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW