LDV100

21 MICHEL DALBERTO So when did you first feel the impact of Liszt’s music? It was at a recital by Claudio Arrau at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. He played, among other pieces, the Sonata in B minor. Not only did his interpretation reveal the inner structure of the work, but his piano-playing also produced a prodigious sound. In 1983 I became interested in the Études d’exécution transcendante , after buying the recording that Arrau made for Philips in 1976. There were also other, underlying elements that drew me to Liszt. At the Paris Conservatoire I played a lot of Mozart and Schubert. In the seventies, that repertory wasn’t very highly regarded. I could sense that the students or teachers I spoke to about my tastes were surprised, to say the least. Some of them must have thought that perhaps I didn’t have enough technique to cope with high-octane virtuosity. Then, at the invitation of René Koering of the Festival de Radio France Occitanie Montpellier, I played the complete Études d’exécution transcendante on 30 July 1986, to mark the centenary of Liszt’s death, in a concert broadcast live on France Musique. Liszt gave me the opportunity to correct a few misconceptions . . .