Piano Solo – Zee Zee

When Franz Liszt first heard some of Schubert’s songs, he was deeply moved. As a master of transcribing music for the piano – whether originally written for other instruments or voice – he went on to create exquisitely sensitive arrangements of many of Schubert’s lieder.

In this recital by acclaimed Chinese-American pianist Zee Zee, the programme revolves around Schubert and Liszt. We hear some of Schubert’s most beautiful songs in Liszt’s delicate arrangements, as well as the first of Schubert’s final three piano sonatas – a profoundly moving masterpiece in which the composer seems to reflect on the life he has lived.

With his extraordinary virtuosity, Liszt was the great piano lion of the 19th century – taking piano playing to entirely new levels. As a composer, he also constantly explored the expressive possibilities of music. Art and literature were key sources of inspiration, and his three suites Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) are closely linked to Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, about a young merchant’s spiritual and artistic journey.

Here, Zee Zee performs three pieces from Années de pèlerinage: Vallée d’Obermann, set in the Swiss Alps; Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este, in which Liszt describes the fountains and lush gardens of the Villa d’Este near Rome; and the dazzlingly virtuosic Tarantella.