Camiel Boomsma writes: “Many of the pieces on this album I have been carrying with me for many years already. In choosing these works for the recording, I was very conscious of that fact. The longer you carry a piece with you, the more you see ‘who’ the piece is rather than what it is. Liszt’s music is like an unspoiled landscape. It’s raw, fragile, strong, uncontrolled, poetic and paradoxical. One of the very first works I discovered was Vallee d’Obermann. When I play this piece, I ask myself to open up to this and observe the story that unfolds. To unfold is essential as well in Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3, Au bord d’une source and Chasse Neige. The common character of these pieces is in a way averse of expectations. It is as if Liszt himself as well did not know exactly how the musical story would unfold. And when the pieces unfold, they all communicate something very profound. The three works by Schubert- Gretchen am Spinnrade and Impromptus D899 No. 1 and No. 3- are in a subtle dialogue with Liszt. They represent my own inner dialogue as well, a dialogue between a certain poetic discretion and passion. With this album I have attempted again to search for the layers of the soul, that very specific moving language. Every piece I play is about this endless search. The beauty and expression lie in the fact that I will never find it. It is a continuous journey.”
