This album was recorded in Henry Wood Hall, London, from December 28-30, 2002, with a Steinway & Sons piano.
Composition History
Liszt's collection of ten religiously inspired pieces, Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, was mostly composed between 1845 and 1851 and put together in Weimar.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The collection Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is dedicated to Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, whose intelligence and spirituality influenced Liszt throughout his life.
Performer Biography
Steven Osborne, the pianist on this recording, was born in Scotland in 1971 and won first prize in the prestigious Clara Haskil Competition in 1991.
Composer Biography
Franz Liszt, the composer, rejected his itinerant life as the world's most famous virtuoso pianist at age thirty-five to live a quieter existence in Weimar.
Composition History
The piece Funérailles is a tribute to those who died in the failed Hungarian uprising of October 1849, including the Hungarian prime minister Lajos Batthyány and thirteen generals.
Critical Reception
It became a Romantic fiction that Funérailles was Liszt's musical memorial to Chopin, who died in the same month as the Hungarian uprising.
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