Années de pelerinage, Premiere année - Suisse, S. 160 Légende No. 2, S. 175
There is arguably no other piano work that displays the same abundance and diversity of overall purpose as well as profound expression and that demands such a high degree of skill from the performer than this wide-ranging piano cycle from the high Romantic era. At the same time, it is almost shocking how very few recordings there are (hardly any, that is to say, not to mention a dearth of concert performances), above all by the great pianists of recent years. The reason for this must surely be the spiritual demands on the artist’s powers of imagination who is required to imbue the keys of the instrument with the bold and exciting depictions of the most diverse emotional landscapes. At this time, Liszt had reached the pinnacle of his compositional imaginative powers when it came to composing piano works, and as the Liszt connoisseur Alfred Brendel once said, his music has the capacity to mercilessly reveal the weaknesses of its interpreters, not just from the point of view of technique, but with regard to the authenticity of expression. Recorded in Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI - Lugano, Switzerland, January 2017.