Liszt Annees de Pelerinage Suisse S 160

With his critically acclaimed AVIE Records releases of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Fauré and Sergei Rachmaninov to his credit, the celebrated British pianist Charles Owen scales the heights of Franz Liszt’s anthology Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse (“Years of Travel, First Year: Switzerland”), which evokes the great 19th-century pianist-composer’s Swiss sojourns with aural impressions of the Alpine landscape, its peaks and valleys, mountains and streams, and the country’s distinctive folk music. Literary references abound as they do in the album’s concluding piece, the emotional Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (“The Blessing of God in Solitude”) which was inspired by a poem penned by Liszt’s friend Alphonse de Lamartine. Emotions ran equally high for Charles Owen who turned to Liszt during lockdown. The uncertainty of being homebound throughout the pandemic was eased by the extra meaning and solace of the composer’s evocations of journeying, experiencing the natural world and its sense of beauty and liberation.

In celebration of the Liszt year 2011, multi-award winning pianist Nelson Freire has personally selected the repertoire for his latest recording - his contribution to the anniversary of the pianist-composer's birth in 1811. The very personal selection includes Liszt showpieces such as the Harmonies du soir (12 ètudes d'exécution transcendante), the Hungarian Rhapsodies and Liebestrëume.

Speaking to the New York Times in 2007, Alfred Brendel said of fellow pianist Till Fellner: “It has impressed me how ambitiously he has developed his repertory, being equally at home in solo and concerto repertoire, chamber music and lieder… I heard him do the best live performance of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage”. Fellner’s insightful playing of the Premiere année from that collection of suites, underlines the contention, vividly conveying Franz Liszt’s literal and imaginative journeys. “Having recently travelled to many new countries,” wrote the composer in 1855, “through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry, and having felt that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights stirred deep emotions in my soul, I have tried to portray in music a few of my strongest sensations and most lively impressions”.