Lise de la Salle

»I don’t know if there are more pianists anywhere else than here in Paris«, wrote Frédéric Chopin in a letter to a friend. He had arrived in the French capital in December 1831, where he came into contact with, amongst others, the virtuoso and showman Franz Liszt. For a short while, these two very different characters even became friends. The French pianist Lise de la Salle, celebrated for her sensitive piano playing, dedicates her recital to these two pianist-composers. The programme features Chopin’s melancholic and elegiac pieces: Ballade No. 4 in F minor and No. 1 in G minor, with their breathtaking codas. De la Salle contrasts these with Liszt’s lyrical »Cantique d’amour« and the opera paraphrase »Réminiscences de ‘Don Juan’ de Mozart«, a composition that is particularly demanding technically. The programme culminates spectacularly with Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, which spans a vast arc from demonic ferocity to a transcendent, softly fading coda.