Valentina Lisitsa takes virtuosity to new heights with a dazzling recording of Liszts most technically challenging work, the unplayable El contrabandista, which the composer conceived as a spectacular encore to his recitals. The controversial work,rarely recorded and here delivered in a brilliant performance by Lisitsa, is the lynchpin of a recital CD of popular Liszt works.

In championing Liszt on her latest album, Lisitsa was keen to address some of the long-standing preconceived notions of him as a crowd-pleasing showman rather than a composer of huge

creativity, incredible diversity and groundbreaking originality.

With that in mind, she has chosen a program featuring the thematic riches of the ingenious Hungarian Rhapsody No.

12; the Ballade No.2 in B minor, with its inspired mix of the dramatic and the lyrical; the paraphrase from Verdis

Aida; and the composers take on

Schuberts Erlkonig and Gute Nacht (from

Winterreise).

A fiery performer who lives on the edge artistically and likes to take risks, Lisitsa recorded one version

of the recital direct to analogue tape, transferred without edits for a special edition LP product. She simultaneously recorded in high-resolution 24-bit digital audio to make the most of modern music format.

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