Pianist: Josef Bulva

When discussing the Transcendental etudes by Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz once remarked “there is unfortunately little hope of hearing this music. Liszt wrote it for himself and nobody else in the world should be as bold as to claim he could even begin to play it”.

“Feux Follets”, or the “Will-O’-the-Wisps, is certainly one of the most technically challenging etudes by Liszt. To perform this piece, one must possess the uttermost control of touch, near infallible accuracy and above all, stamina. However, Bulva shows no deficiently of pianism in any of these fields.

Furthermore, the cascades of everchanging chromatic patterns form harmonic colouring foreshadowing the impressionistic music of the future. This technique was a great inspiration to French composer Maurice Ravel. It is even thought that the overwhelmingly difficult pianism in ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’ can be directly attributed to Liszt’s etudes.