Winner of the First and the Audience Prizes at the Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition and the First Prize of the Steinway Competition in Berlin (2015), as well as the Honorific Prize Juventudes Musicales in Madrid, Juan Pérez-Floristán is establishing a stellar career among the new generation of European musicians. He has debuted in Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Warsaw, Moscow, St Petersburg and Malmö, and played with orchestras such as the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony, Radio Televisión Española, Seville Royal Symphony, and the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, Malaga and Cordoba Symphonies under the batons of maestros Pablo González, Marc Soustrot, Adrian Leaper, Christian Arming, Pedro Halffter, and Salvador Brotons, among others. Juan Pérez-Floristán is also a committed chamber musician performing with his ensemble, the VibrArt Trio, in addition to participating in prestigious chamber music festivals. He studied for ten years with his mother, María Floristán, and then with Galina Eguiazarova for four years while at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. Thanks to the support of Elisabeth Leonskaja, Floristán was invited to the festival Ruhr Klavier in Germany, where he performed as a Stipendiat in 2012. He has also been greatly supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, key for his career and development. Juan Pérez-Floristán currently studies in Berlin with Eldar Nebolsin.

Liszt was the son of a steward in the service of the Esterházy family, patrons of Haydn. He was born in 1811 at Raiding in Hungary and moved as a child to Vienna, where he took piano lessons from Czerny and composition lessons from Salieri. Two years later, in 1823, he moved with his family to Paris, from where he toured as a pianist. Influenced by the phenomenal violinist Paganini, he turned his attention to the development of a similar technique as a pianist and in 1835 left Paris with his mistress, the Comtesse d’Agoult, with whom he travelled widely during the following years as his reputation as a pianist of astonishing powers grew. In 1844 he separated from his mistress, the mother of his three children, and in 1848 he settled in Weimar as Director of Music Extraordinary, accompanied by Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein. He now turned his attention to composition and in particular to the creation of a new form: the symphonic poem. In 1861 Liszt moved to Rome, where he found expression for his long-held religious leanings. From 1869 he returned regularly to Weimar, where he had many pupils, and later he accepted similar obligations in Budapest, where he was regarded as a national hero. He died in Bayreuth in 1886, four years after the death of his son-in-law Wagner. As a pianist he had no equal, and as a composer he suggested to a younger generation of musicians the new course that music was to take.

Orchestral Music
Liszt’s symphonic poems met strong criticism from champions of pure music, who took exception to his attempts to translate into musical terms the greatest works of literature. The best known of the symphonic poems are Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne, based on Victor Hugo; Les Préludes, based on Lamartine; works based on Byron’s Tasso and Mazeppa; and Prometheus, along with the so-called Faust Symphony in Three Character Sketches after Goethe and the Symphony to Dante’s Divina Commedia. Other orchestral works include two episodes from Lenau’s Faust, the second the First Mephisto Waltz (to which a second was added 20 years later, in 1881). Liszt wrote two piano concertos, and, among other works for piano and orchestra, Totentanz (‘Dance of Death’) and Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Melodies. Six of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, written for piano, were effectively arranged for orchestra by Franz Doppler and revised by Liszt.

Piano Music
Liszt wrote a great deal of music for the piano, some of which was later revised and consequently exists in a number of versions. In addition to original piano music he also made many transcriptions of the work of other composers and wrote works based on national themes. The violinist Paganini was the immediate inspiration for the Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, dedicated to Clara Schumann, wife of the composer Robert Schumann, and based on five of Paganini’s 24 caprices for solo violin and the last movement of his Violin Concerto No. 2 (‘La campanella’). The Transcendental Studies, revised in 1851 as Études d’exécution transcendante, form a set of 12 pieces, including ‘Wilde Jagd’ (‘Wild Hunt’), ‘Harmonies du soir’ (‘Evening Harmony’), and ‘Chasse-Neige’ (‘Snow Plough’). The three collections later given the title Années de pèlerinage (‘Years of Pilgrimage’) wander from Switzerland in the first book to Italy in the second two; they form a series of evocative poetic pictures, inspired by landscape, poems and works of art. The earlier volumes stem from the years of wandering with Marie d’Agoult, and the last from the final period of Liszt’s life, based in Rome. The Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, written between 1845 and 1852, represent, in the 10 pieces included, something of the composer’s lasting religious feelings. These feelings are also evident in the Légendes of 1863, the first of the two representing St Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds and the second St Francis de Paul walking on the water. The remarkable Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, based on a theme from a Bach cantata, mourns the death of his elder daughter Blandine. His Fantasia and Fugue on the letters of ‘Bach’ (B flat – A – C – H, the last being B natural in English notation) was originally written for organ. Liszt wrote one sonata, novel in its form.

The Hungarian Rhapsodies, eventually appearing as a set of 19 pieces, are based on a form of art music familiar in Hungary and fostered by gypsy musicians, although these works are not, as Liszt thought, a recreation of true Hungarian folk music. The Rapsodie espagnole makes use of the well-known La folia theme, used by Corelli and many other Baroque composers, and the jota aragonesa. Transcriptions of his own orchestral and choral compositions include a version of the second of his three Mephisto Waltzes, works supporting legends that had once dogged Paganini concerning diabolical assistance in performance. Of the many other transcriptions for piano, those of the Beethoven symphonies are among the most remarkable. There are a number of operatic transcriptions and fantasies. These include Réminiscences de Don Juan, based on Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and a dozen or so based on the work of his friend and son-in-law Wagner.

Sacred Choral Music
Although associated primarily with instrumental music, piano works and orchestral symphonic poems, Liszt also wrote a quantity of sacred choral music. This ranges from his patriotic oratorio The Legend of St Elisabeth to a whole range of liturgical and devotional works in which he sought to reform Catholic church music from the prevailing sentimentality of the period.

Organ Music
Although his skill as an organist could not match his abilities as a pianist, Liszt nevertheless took a strong interest in the organ and contributed to the repertoire of the instrument with works that make some demands on technical virtuosity.

The son of a bookseller, publisher and writer, Robert Schumann showed early abilities in both music and literature, the second facility used in his later writing on musical subjects. After brief study at university, he was allowed by his widowed mother and guardian to undertake serious study of the piano with Friedrich Wieck, whose favourite daughter Clara was later to become Schumann’s wife. His ambitions as a pianist were thwarted by a weakness in the fingers of one hand, but the 1830s nevertheless brought a number of compositions for the instrument. The year of his marriage, 1840, was a year of song, followed by attempts in which his young wife encouraged him at more ambitious forms of orchestral composition. Settling first in Leipzig and then in Dresden, the Schumanns moved in 1850 to Düsseldorf, where Schumann had his first official appointment, as municipal director of music. In 1854 he had a serious mental breakdown, followed by two years in the asylum at Endenich before his death in 1856. As a composer Schumann’s gifts are clearly heard in his piano music and in his songs.

Orchestral Music

Symphonies

Schumann completed four symphonies, after earlier unsuccessful attempts at the form. The first, written soon after his marriage and completed early in 1841, is known as ‘Spring’ and has a suggested programme. His Second Symphony followed in 1846, and the Third Symphony, ‘Rhenish’, a celebration of the Rhineland and its great cathedral at Cologne, was written in Düsseldorf in 1850. Symphony No. 4 was in fact an earlier work, revised in 1851 and first performed in Düsseldorf in 1853. The Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Op. 52 was described by the composer as a ‘symphonette’.

Concertos

Schumann’s only completed piano concerto was started in 1841 and finished in 1845. The Cello Concerto of 1850 was first performed four years after Schumann’s death, while the 1853 Violin Concerto had to wait over 80 years before its first performance in 1937. The Konzertstück for four French horns is an interesting addition to orchestral repertoire, and his Introduction and Allegro for piano and orchestra was completed in 1853.

Overtures

Schumann’s only completed opera, Genoveva, was unsuccessful in the theatre, but its overture holds a place in concert-hall repertoire, along with an overture to Byron’s Manfred, again first intended for the theatre. Concert overtures include Die Braut von Messina (‘The Bride from Messina’), based on Schiller’s play of that name; Julius Cäsar, based on Shakespeare; and Hermann und Dorothea, based on Goethe. A setting of scenes from Goethe’s Faust also includes an overture.

Chamber Music

Schumann wrote three string quartets in 1842, a fertile period that also saw the composition of a piano quintet and a piano quartet. Other important chamber music by Schumann includes three piano trios, three violin sonatas, and a number of shorter character pieces that include the Märchenbilder for viola and piano, collections of Phantasiestücke with alternative instrumentation, the Fünf Stücke im Volkston for cello (or violin) and piano, and other short pieces generally suggesting a literary or otherwise extra-musical programme.

Choral and Vocal Music

Schumann wrote a number of part-songs for mixed voices, for women’s voices and for men’s voices, including four collections of Romanzen und Balladen and two of Romanzen for women’s voices. His choral works with orchestra include Scenes from Goethe’s Faust; Das Paradies und die Peri, based on Thomas Moore’s poem Lalla Rookh; and Requiem for Mignon, based on Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister. In his final years he wrote a Mass and a Requiem. The solo songs of Schumann offer a rich repertoire and are an important addition to the body of German Lieder. From these many settings mention may be made of the collections and song cycles Myrthen, Op. 25, Liederkreis, Op. 39, Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 42, and Dichterliebe, Op. 48, all written in the ‘Year of Song’, 1840.

Piano Music

The piano music of Schumann, whether written for himself, for his wife, or, in later years, for his children, offers a wealth of material. From the earlier period comes Carnaval—a series of short musical scenes with motifs derived from the letters of the town of Asch; this was the home of a fellow student of Friedrich Wieck called Ernestine von Fricken, to whom Schumann was briefly engaged. The same period brought the Davidsbündlertänze (‘Dances of the League of David’), a reference to the imaginary league of friends of art against the surrounding Philistines. This decade also brought the first version of the monumental Symphonic Studies (based on a theme by the father of Ernestine von Fricken) and the well-known Kinderszenen (‘Scenes of Childhood’). Kreisleriana has its literary source in the Hoffmann character Kapellmeister Kreisler, Papillons (‘Butterflies’) has a source in the work of the writer Jean Paul, and Noveletten has a clear literary reference in the very title. Later piano music by Schumann includes the Album für die Jugend (‘Album for the Young’) of 1848, Waldszenen (‘Forest Scenes’) of 1849, and the collected Bunte Blätter (‘Coloured Leaves’) and Albumblätter (‘Album Leaves’) drawn from earlier work.