Simon Ghraichy - Duels - Liszt: Sonata in B minor, Schumann: Kreisleriana (2015)

The young Lebanese-Mexican pianist Simon Ghraichy makes his Challenge Classics debut with a disc pairing Liszt's Sonata in B minor and Schumann's Kreisleriana, concluding with the bonus of the Allegretto from Beethoven's Symphony No 7.

Schumann's Kreisleriana illustrates sometimes the calm, sometimes the extreme agitation, reflecting the stormy character of the composer. Each one of its eight pieces reveals contradictory 'Florestan and Eusebius' sections, the two imaginary characters created by Schumann himself, representatives of his impulsiveness and reverie. Liszt's one-movement B minor Sonata contrasts episodes that are violent yet dreamy, luminous and angelic yet somehow sarcastic or even Mephistophelian. Beethoven's Allegretto from the Seventh Symphony is full of melancholy beauties punctuated by a sudden gleam of sunshine.

Schumann and Liszt met for the first time at one of Liszt's concerts in Dresden on 16 March 1840, when the two musicians felt that they had known one another for twenty years, so familiar were they with each other's music as well as with their published writings and respective reputations. Both men were writer-composers imbued with the spirit of literature and capable of expressing themselves just as well through words as through music. But many things set them apart: Liszt was living the life of a famous virtuoso à la mode while Schumann could not follow the same path.

Personnel: Simon Ghraichy (piano)