István Lajkó Piano Recital

Liszt’s music is a reflection of everything he saw, heard, or experienced in his life. He expressed the turbulent thoughts of his restless mind and gave voice to his emotions through the sound of the piano. He transformed three sonnets by the Italian poet Petrarch into music as a tribute to his first great love, Marie d’Agoult, and composed the paraphrase of Lucia di Lammermoor as a homage to the art of the Italian opera composer, Gaetano Donizetti. All of this led Liszt to innovations in piano technique and an expansion of his expressive power. In his Piano Sonata in B minor, Liszt distilled the musical language, enriched by these external influences, into pure artistry, leaving behind its programmatic origins. It is not surprising that this sonata was initially met with incomprehension among his contemporaries, as it represents the synthesis of Liszt’s entire oeuvre and his innovative, epoch-making pianism.