All of the pieces in this programme have a literary or artistic connection as the background to their creation. Heard here in their first version, the Consolations owe their title to a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine and include a melody that later became the first Hungarian Rhapsody. The meditative Sposalizio was inspired by a painting by Raphael, and the Ballade by Gottfried Burger's haunting 'Lenore.' Victor Hugo's Apres une lecture de Dante is used powerfully by Liszt to express damnation and hope, and the first Mephisto Waltz derived from Lenau's 'Faust' depicts a dance both sinister and amorous. Born in Rijeka in 1981, Goran Filipec studied at the Ino Mirkovich Academy in Croatia, at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and the Conservatoire national superieur de musique et de danse de Paris. During his early career, he was a top prizewinner of several international piano competitions. He performs across Europe, the US, South America and Japan as a recitalist and as a soloist with leading orchestras.