The young and talented pianist Elisa Tomellini loves both physical and musical challenges, and is no stranger to literally scaling high mountain peaks. No wonder then that she is the first woman to perform the original version of the Études après Paganini (S140), that Robert Schumann considered “...the most difficult work ever written for the piano, as is the original for the violin. Certainly only a few pianists will be able to tackle them, perhaps no more than four of five in the world”. Dynamic is proud to present one of them.

Pianists almost always play the simplified version, written by Liszt himself in 1852, but the CD Paganini Études and other virtuoso piano works contains Liszt's original 1838 version, inspired by the Caprices for violin, that aimed to achieve on the piano an extreme virtuosity that was unprecedented in the instrument’s literature.