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Harmonies Hongroises on CD

"Throughout the dozen years I spent in Weimar, one great idea kept me in suspense - the renewal of music through a more intimate connection with poetry," wrote Franz Liszt in an 1860 letter to his close piano student Agnes Street-Klindworth (1825-1906). But Liszt's entire artistic life oscillated even more between art and religion, between freedom of expression and the strictness of dogmatic limitations. This artistic credo becomes clear not least in his piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses p.273. This very varied cycle, which dates back to 1835, combines grand concert pieces (such as Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude or Funérailles) with simple and shorter compositions, some of which incorporate Gregorian chants, with reference to a collection of poems by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869). This cross-section of a poetic-religious artistic life inspired the two musicians on this recording, pianist Julia Okruashvili and cellist László Fenyo, to create this CD Harmonies Hongroises, which combines music by Franz Liszt, born in 1811 in the Kingdom of Hungary, with music by Hungarian composers from the first half of the 20th century.