Behzod Abduraimov plays Liszt, Schubert, and Prokofiev

In 2009, at just 18, Behzod Abduraimov of Uzbekistan won the prestigious London International Piano Competition and became one of the world's most in-demand pianists, called "the most perfectly accomplished pianist of his generation" (Michael Church, The Independent) and drawing comparisons to Horowitz. As a counterpart to Prokofiev’s massive Piano Sonata No. 6, a piece included in his debut album that closes this electrifying 2017 recital in Paris, Abduraimov also brings remarkable assurance to a monument of the Romantic repertoire: Liszt’s stormy, devilishly difficult Sonata in B Minor.

Rounding out the program are two transcriptions by the Hungarian master: the rapturously beautiful piano version of the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (composed a few years before Wagner married Liszt's daughter Cosima) and the Valse Caprice No. 6 from Soirées de Vienne, based on a waltz by Schubert—two of whose Moments Musicaux also get a thoughtful and mature treatment by the young virtuoso.