12 études d'exécution transcendante

Description

In completing his 12 Transcendental Études Op. 11, Sergei Lyapunov does not merely complement Liszt’s famous cycle of the same name by paying homage to it. He extends and transposes its fabulous discoveries into his own language, the one he inherited from Balakirev and the Mighty Handful: a typically Russian, sometimes Caucasian idiom. It is this language that he invokes in Lesghinka, that fiery dance based on Kabardian motifs, or in Terek, after a poem by Lermontov describing that stormy river of the Caucasus. The extreme virtuosity required by the entire set is constantly at the service of a deeply musical thought, whether evoking the Aeolian harps, the Carillons, or the magnificent Berceuse that opens the cycle, through which Lyapunov extends the charm of Chopin’s. Like Liszt’s Twelve Transcendental Études, which Lyapunov revered, these visionary and colorful works, imbued in places with Russian folklore, demand from the performer as much technical prowess as poetic sensibility. Florian Noack offers a reading of these brilliant and still little-known pages with great clarity, imagination, and vitality. He overcomes their countless difficulties with magnificent brilliance, matched by exemplary musicianship.