Born in Hong Kong, and spending his formative years in Canada, Avan Yu was the 2012 winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition, leading to this release. He has, more recently, appeared as the soloist with major orchestras from four different continents and in locations as diverse as Germany, China, Australia and the United States. For his first commercial recording he has selected Franz Liszt’s piano transcriptions of Schubert’s lieder. No other composer had such an insatiable appetite for transcribing the music of others, accommodating works for large ensembles in the confines of the keyboard, so that they could enjoy a more widespread performance. [Yu] has such an innate feeling for Schubert both in the pace and shading of each ‘song’, and for a perfect example of those qualities turn to track 15—Fruhlingssehnsucht from Schwanengesang—though it will be the sadness and intensity he brings to the final track—Kreigers Ahung—that will remain in the memory. Technically he is impeccable throughout, and he is obviously a young man with a big future.