Liszt Années de Pèlerinage II et III Yoshikawa - YIL004 - Ypsilon - Classique

From the Années de pèlerinage - second year - 4 pieces were chosen inspired by the masterpieces by Raphael, Michelangelo, Petrarca and Dante; 3 instead are the pieces chosen from the third year and composed at Villa d'Este - where Liszt spent long stays in the last years of his life - then the paraphrase of the famous quartet of the opera "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi and finally "La Campanella" on the motifs taken from the third movement of the Concerto for violin n. 2 of Paganini. Like the works that inspired them, so too Liszt's compositions dedicated to Italy are masterpieces, magnificently interpreted by Takahiro Yoshikawa, a virtuoso Japanese pianist who has lived in Milan for 20 years and plays willingly at the Teatro alla Scala but also in the evocative and unusual contexts that Italy offers. The CD proposed on the shelves in these days makes a virtuous synthesis of the many elements at stake: the typical cantability of the opera, the structural rigor in the typical symphonic poems, the harmonies that anticipate the impressionists and the transcendental virtuosity of Liszt. The recording was done live at the Umberto Agnelli Auditorium of the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo and also contains the "Parafrase on Rigoletto" and "La Campanella" which were performed as encores. The cover of the artist Duška Karanov is the visual transcription of the first pages of "Parafrase on Rigoletto".