Balázs Fülei Piano Recital

In preparation for the year’s biggest holiday, Balázs Fülei has brought together rarely performed sacred works for piano by Liszt for this solo recital. The composer gave himself over to contemplation and deep devoutness after his youthful virtuoso years, and this went hand-in-hand with a transformation in the style of his creative art. The ten-movement cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is the series of his most profound piano works, which places his virtuosity exclusively into the service of the power of expression. Knowing these two creative periods it is perhaps difficult to imagine that the elderly Liszt also turned his hand to writing charming Christmas music, but this is precisely what one child induced him to do. Liszt spent autumn 1875 in Rome with his granddaughter, Daniela von Bülow: he wrote the ten-movement Christmas Tree for her, after which it sank into obscurity until Balázs Fülei made it a standard on his festive repertoire.