With her impressive debut album, the Russian pianist Anastasia Huppmann brings together works for piano solo by Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt. Both composers, whose friendly relationship developed during their joint years living in Paris, were affected by the widespread awakening of nationalistic ideas at the time, which led them to use musical elements from their respective native countries, Poland and Hungary, as the basis for many of their works. The catchiness of the rhythms, melodies and harmonies, which had previously hardly existed in this form in the world of classical music, brought about highly virtuoso cornerstones like the Hungarian Rhapsodies No.2 and No.11 or the popular Mephisto Waltz No.1 S514 by Franz Liszt. The polonaises, concert etudes and waltzes by Chopin as well count among the most well-known pieces for piano solo.