The first professional CD release is a decisive step in a young musician's career. Nowadays, when the shelves are already filled with recordings of almost the entire traditional piano repertoire, it is especially important to see a debut CD as an artistic achievement that illustrates the musician's personality, strong points and intentions. Conceiving this album has therefore taken me a long time. In choosing the repertoire, Claude Debussy's first book of Preludes moved increasingly to the forefront, being a work which I had spent a great deal of time on and which awoke in me the urge to express myself. It was nonetheless soon clear that the album also needed an aspect that added interest and that it would not solely contain Debussy's music. I duly chose Franz Liszt, a composer who has been very important to me since I took up my studies and whose music could be combined very harmoniously with that of the French composer. After a detailed perusal of the repertoire, I chose four works to frame and annotate the Debussy cycle. I decided to order the works in accordance with a dramatic scheme that revealed musical connections between the two composers and invited the listener to embark on a journey through an innovative and colourful world. - Christian Erny