Lukas Sternath piano
Liszt’s journey to Italy is remembered at the keyboard by the young pianist Lukas Sternath.
Dates
Liszt Les Années de pélerinage, Book II (Italy)
About
Young Viennese pianist Lukas Sternath (who was born in 2001) won First Prize (and 7 special prizes) at the ARD competition in Munich in 2022 and was then awarded the “Rising Star” prize by ECHO, the European Concert Hall Organisation. He has been invited to give his first recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and is treating us to a journey to Italy. The genesis and publication of the first two volumes of Liszt’s Pilgrimage Years are very closely connected. Scarcely a year after returning from Switzerland, Liszt embarked on a trip to Italy in the summer of 1837 which would last for over two years. In Volume I, “Switzerland”, the composer’s main aim was to depict the nature, landscapes and history of the country in music. But in Book II, Italy, he transcribes the impressions aroused by poetry (Petrarch, Dante), and by painting and sculpture (Raphael, Michelangelo). The group of seven pieces in Book II, composed between 1838 and 1849, concludes with the very famous Dante Sonata.
Production Théâtre des Champs-Élysées