Piano Sonata in B minor / Venezia e Napoli / etc

"while Hamelin's technique is superhuman and magisterial, there is never a question of virtuosity for its own sake...the rapidity of Hamelin's repeated notes in the sun-drenched Tarantella is scarcely believable, his poetic poise and noble refinement elsewhere no less notable...Even so, pride of place must go to the Sonata, where Hamelin tempers Liszt's rhetoric with a measure of dignity and restraint...In short, this is a pianist to trump all aces." Gramophone Magazine, Editor's Choice, May 2011

This year, April is Hamelin month at Hyperion; not content with giving us another blockbuster addition to the Romantic Piano Concerto series, the pianist gives us his contribution to the Liszt bicentenary.

The Liszt Sonata is undoubtedly one of the peaks of the repertoire, and recordings are suitably copious, but when an artist of Hamelin's virtuoso pedigree wishes to tackle it no excuse need be made for an additional version. The recital opens with a lesser-known masterwork, the Fantasy and Fugue on B-A-C-H, and for light relief there is Liszt's scintillating supplement to his Italian Année de Pèlerinage, the three pieces of Venezia e Napoli, but perhaps the emotional core of the recital is Liszt's intensely spiritual Bénédiction du Dieu dans la solitude.

This is a major Liszt recital from one of today's most admired recording artists