Can an Italian pianist fittingly celebrate the greatest Italian composer of the 19th century, who did not compose any significant piano pieces? The way in which Liszt observed the art of Giuseppe Verdi, a musician who was quite distant from him in manner, is quite significant, particularly if we consider what he chose, among the countless facets of Verdi s musical and theatrical world, in order to obtain the wonderful fantasies and transcriptions for pianos that are contained in this disc. Here we do not find any trace of the moral Verdi even less of the patriotic Verdi but we do find inexhaustible variations on the deep-rooted theme of Romanticism.