With this recording of a selection of Franz Liszt’s music for violin and piano, Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen aim at expanding our understanding of the prolific composer whose style, especially later, evolved in a manner far ahead of its time. Liszt composed his first music for violin and piano as early as 1832, returning to this instrumental combination throughout his life. Some of the pieces are re-workings of earlier compositions. In the early Grand Duo concertant pure virtuosity and the joy of playing are to the fore, but in the late works Liszt takes us on a journey into his own innermost soul.

Liszt’s musical precocity can be measured by the fact that at the age of thirteen he had begun work on what was to become his Op.6, the Etude en douze exercices. After later revisions this became the Grandes Études of 1837 and, with simplifications, the Études d’exécution transcendante of 1851. The monumental 1837 studies were composed after years of travel and at a time when Liszt’s virtuoso status was near its zenith. He transformed the earlier prototype studies, through the prism of his own transcendental technique, into etudes of coruscating technical difficulty and extraordinarily vivid characterisation.

Franz Liszt had an overwhelming impact on the musical life of his time through revolutionary innovations in harmony, form and pianistic technique. Both Liszt and his brilliant musical heir Ferruccio Busoni regarded their compositions as living entities, always suitable for recycling and reshaping to create new works. This program is an illustration of this practice, with Goran Filipec freely extending and varying the cadenzas in the Hungarian Fantasy, while Busoni enhances the emotional states of horror, grotesque comedy and sublime serenity in the Totentanz. Goran Filipec is renowned for his exceptional interpretations of the works of Franz Liszt and the high virtuosity of his Classical and Romantic repertoire. A laureate of several international piano competitions, Filipec has appeared internationally as a recitalist and soloist with symphony orchestras across Europe, the Americas and Japan. He has been invited on multiple occasions to the Mariinsky Theatre Contemporary Piano Faces festival, Progetto Martha Argerich and Dubrovnik Summer Festival. Filipec is co-founder and president of the Société Franz Liszt de Genève, which is devoted to the appreciation and study of the Hungarian composer’s oeuvre.

Young and talented Elisa Tomellini loves challenges and is used to climbing high mountain peaks. Both physical as well as musical. No wonder then that she is the first woman to perform the first version of the Etudes aprés Paganini (S.140) that Robert Schumann reviewed as “the most difficult work ever written for the piano, as is the original for the violin. Certainly only a few pianists will be able to tackle them, perhaps no more than four of five in the world.” Dynamic is proud to feature one of them. As pianists almost always play the simplified version re-written by Liszt himself in 1852, the album Paganini Études and other virtuoso piano works contains the first 1838 version that Liszt wrote inspired by the Caprices, successfully achieving on the piano an extreme virtuosity that was unprecedented in that instrument’s literature. Born in Genoa, Italy, Elisa Tomellini has been studying piano since the age of five. She was admitted to the prestigious Music Academy ‘Incontri Col Maestro’ in Imola at the age of sixteen. In 1997 she gained a diploma at the Conservatory G. Verdi in Milan. She has won several pries at international competitions such as the ‘Viotti Valsesia,’ the ‘Concorso di Cantu’ and the ‘Concorso Citta di Pavia.’

The eighteen ‘Ungarischer Romanzero’ are transcriptions of popular Hungarian melodies made partially in collaboration with violinist Ede Remenyi. The manuscripts are not always complete, with space for performers to add their own elaborations, or to follow Liszt’s own hints on his own performances of pieces that give valuable insights into his Hungarian influences in their rawest form. The ‘Hungarian National Melodies’ provide opportunities for amateur players, while the hugely popular Rakoczi March became the unofficial national anthem of Hungary, also being used by Berlioz and other composers. Pianist Warren Lee made his televised debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of six and was the first prize winner of the 1995 Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition and the Grand Prix Ivo Pogorelich. His discography includes many acclaimed albums of solo and chamber music repertoire. The ‘American Record Guide’ called him a “first-rate artist” while Fanfare noted that he is “a pianist to watch out, whether as a soloist or chamber musician.”

Volume 58 of the critically acclaimed Liszt Complete Piano Music edition spans Canzone napolitana and the Hungarian Folk Songs to a paraphrase of God Save the Queen. Includes numerous rarely recorded rarities. Performed by award-winning pianist Domonkos Csabay, a native of Hungary. This is his debut on Naxos. Based in the UK since 2015, Hungarian accompanist, répétiteur and chamber musician Domonkos Csabay performs a wide range of classical repertoire. Domonkos has won numerous prizes in the last two years, including first prize in the Brant (now renamed as ‘Birmingham’) International Piano Competition. He played as a pre-concert showcase performer for concerts by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and pianist Paul Lewis and made his debut on BBC Radio 3 in 2018, broadcasting the famously virtuosic Eroica variations by Beethoven.

Franz Liszt’s mystical piano cycle, Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses takes its title from a collection of poems by the French romanticist Alphonse de Lamartine and underwent an unusally long period of gestation, written over a period of two decades. Liszt’s religious and abiding preoccupation with poetic themes in his creative works was in part fueled by his passion for the works of and friendship with de Lamartine. Given a splendid interpretation by pianist, Michael Korstick.

Even before meeting they were dedicating hours of practice to Liszt’s Mephisto Waltzes. An international solo piano competition was coming up, and the two young pianists were scheduled to vie against each other with this work. Twenty-five years and dozens of successful competitions later, the same two pianists sat down opposite each other at two grand pianos to perform not as rivals but as a renowned duo. “We have decided to dedicate this CD recording to Franz Liszt’s original works for two pianos and to his versions of his own solo piano compositions for two pianos” (Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo).