The acclaimed Russian pianist explains his passion for Liszt’s Études and why it was important to him to record them all.

Liszt is often considered the ultimate virtuoso’s composer. What age were you when you first started playing him, and what works did you start with?

My first encounter with the music of Liszt was when I first played the transcriptions of Schubert songs when I was 11 years old. I played a selection of them and even in the transcriptions you can see links to the composer of his own pieces. I then played the Mephisto Waltz No 1 when I was 15 years old. With this piece Liszt set a lot of new directions in music especially in the middle section which is full of harmonic longing, very personal music with intimate chromatic shifts which was new in music and which later found expression in the music language of Scriabin. I played various of his sonatas in all the competitions I entered as these are really very substantial works for any pianist and the exploration of them by a pianist is without end.

Compared with Chopin’s often miniature Études, Liszt’s are gargantuan monsters. What do you think the...