Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, 1ère année, Suisse (9 pieces), S. 160 (Years of Pilgrimage, 1st year, Switzerland)

South Korean-born Sinae Lee leads a busy life as a soloist, chamber musician and lecturer based in Glasgow, UK. Since her UK début with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), playing Brahms Piano Concerto No.1, she has also played with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, St. James Orchestra, Glasgow Orchestral Society, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) Wind Emsemble and RCS Orchestra.

She has frequently appeared in concerts in New York, St. Petersburg, Riga, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as in her native cities in Korea such as Seoul, Suwon and Busan.

In Korea, she studied piano at Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School. After obtaining a Bachelor of Music with Distinction at Seoul National University, Sinae was offered a place to study at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) with a full scholarship awarded by the Inches Carr Trust. A year later she obtained MMus with Distinction at RCS. While studying in Seoul, she won many prestigious prizes, such as the Chung-Ang Daily Newspaper competition, and the Korean Music Association for Overseas competitors.

Sinae studied piano with Hwa-Young Yi, Hyoung-Joon Chang in Korea and Philip Jenkins in UK. Since 2001, Sinae has been teaching piano as a Lecturer in the department of Keyboard and Collaborative Piano at RCS.

Between June and July 2011, she performed the entire series of the Années de Pèlerinage by Liszt in UK and in Korea, celebrating the 200 anniversary of his birth. This recording was made in the recording studio at RCS, straight after giving recitals at RCS in June 2011.

With this recording of the complete Années de Pèlerinage by Franz Liszt, the celebrated French pianist Bertrand Chamayou makes his own personal musical statement to celebrate the composer’s 200th anniversary. During the anniversary year Bertrand Chamayou has undertaken the monumental feat of playing the whole of this set of pieces in a single three-hour performance at many leading venues throughout the world.

Pianist Bertrand Chamayou was born in Toulouse in 1981, and is among the most sought after personalities on the music scene today. After he became a prize-winner at the international Long-Thibaud competition at in 2001 Bertrand’s talent was spotted by pianist Jean-François Heisser who was later to become his professor at Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. He went on to complete his training with Maria Curcio in London and was given precious advice by such great masters as Leon Fleisher, Dimitri Bashkirov and Murray Perahia. Recent solo engagements include the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Lucerne Festival, and performances with amongst others the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the WDR Sinfonie Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Liszt’s “Years of Pilgrimage” are more than a journey through Switzerland and Italy. They are also a musical journey through time. Ragna Schirmer is an outstanding German pianist and has an affinity with Liszt’s complicated world. The links to the Renaissance are underscored by the madrigals of Gesualdo and Marenzio.

This is the debut recording of the young Bulgarian virtuoso Julian Gorus. He brings a special Slavic sensitivity to the music of Liszt and this is a stunning new interpretation of the complete Années de Pèlerinage.

The American pianist Jerome Lowenthal has been known as a great exponent of Liszt for many decades, performing the solo repertoire and concertos throughout the world in the most prestigious venues, and with the world's great orchestras and conductors.

Now in his late-70s, Lowenthal has taken on the challenge of recording Liszt's great cycle, Années de pèlerinage. In addition to performing the complete “three years”, Lowenthal plays the spectacular early version of Les Cloches de Geneva (known as Les Cloches de G*****), and the appendix to the “Italian” book, Venezia e Napoli. As a bonus, Lowenthal is joined by his daughter, pianist Carmel Lowenthal, for a rare recording of the four-hand version of Books II and III of Liszt's charming Christmas Tree Suite.

Piano Classics is proud and happy to present the second volume dedicated to this Italian artist - “The only other pianist”, according to Michelangeli - in a complete survey of his Liszt recordings, some dating back to the late 1950s, featuring the complete first book of 'Années de pèlerinage' (Suisse), a fine selection of Hungarian Rhapsodies, a disc of late piano pieces, both piano concertos and an assortment of studies and character pieces, rounded off by a magnificent reading of the B minor Sonata.

Recordings made between 1958 and 1997, from original tapes and transfers from original LPs.

Franz Liszt, a sensational virtuoso, a pioneering composer, and a towering figure in the history of the piano, produced more music for his instrument than Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann combined. This 10-disc collection, uniting his major piano works and a number of more rarely heard pieces, features recordings from the last 50 years by such pianists as György Cziffra, Aldo Ciccolini, André Watts, Mikhail Rudy, Stephen Hough and Leif Ove Andsnes.