Liszt's music and personality have always been close to our hearts, and his works are one of the cornerstones of our collaboration. We were the ones who premièred the four-handed version of Via Crucis - which we count among his chief works - in 1986, followed in 1990 by the transcription for two piano of the Faust Symphony, which had previously only existed for many years in manuscript form. We would also regularly play his painstakingly crafted two-piano transcription of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. We have been presenting some of Liszt's symphonic poems in four-handed versions from the beginning, but lately we decided to learn all of them. Liszt created extracts for two pianos at the same time as composing the orchestral versions of these, but then years later, in many cases 15 to 20 years later, he would also cast them into four-handed form with a great many changes: wonderful new pieces that were genuinely written for the piano. It is an enormous, joyful and uplifting task to play these largely unknown versions for an audience. All of this is also related to the fact that we are celebrating Liszt's 210th birthday in 2021. And this in turn is coupled with a personal anniversary, as this year I myself will turn 70 (the interesting aspect of this: 70 x 3 = 210). In both of our names: Dezső Ránki

Presented by: Jakobi Koncert Kft.