This dramatic virtuoso recital by pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, recorded in January 2011 at the Cité de la musique in Paris, evokes the excessive, sensual and imaginative worlds of such Romantic poets as Lamartine and Lautrémont. At the heart of the program, the large, two-movement Sonata by Jean Barraqué was directly inspired by the then 24-year-old composer s admiration for Beethoven and Debussy. Neuburger s own composition Maldoror and Liszt s Funérailles, performed in the first part of the recital, display the piano in all the demiurgic violence of which it is capable. A selection from Debussy s Images II closes the program.