Work: Venezia e Napoli, S 162

French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie brought Italy to London in a lunchtime recital which perfectly captured the vivid sights, sounds and colours of Naples and Venice.

The "second year" of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage takes us an a tour around Italy's artistic treasures: painting by Raphael, sculpture by Michelangelo, poetry by Petrarch and Dante and music (allegedly) by Salvator Rosa.

In a setting Liszt himself would have approved of – the grand hall, the plush red velvet swags and tails, the full nine feet of gleaming Steinway stretched across a stage bathed in a curious blue light, the eager Prommers craning in expectation – Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin celebrated the composer’s 200th birthday in a recital of coruscating virtuosity and extreme pianism.