Born in Munich in 1988 to a German father and a Japanese mother, Alice Sara Ott received her first piano lessons when she was four and won first prize with distinction in Germany's prestigious “Jugend musiziert" competition at the early age of seven. This was followed by further top prizes and special awards at the Steinway, Grotrian Steinweg, Bach Cöthen and other competitions, including the 4th EPTA (European Piano Teachers Association) International Competition. At the age of 15 she won first prize (the Silvio Bengalli Prize) at the Pianello Val Tidone Competition in Italy as the youngest contestant and with the highest number of points ever given in the competition's history.
Alice Sara Ott has made an unusual speciality of performing Liszt's twelve "Transcendental Etudes" and has already won extraordinary praise for her live performances of the daunting cycle in Germany and Switzerland. Her triumphant recital at Munich's Herkulessaal in January 2007, playing Beethoven's “Waldstein" Sonata and the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, elicited the following extraordinary encomium in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung": “Ott lends a personal, almost overwhelming poetic charm to this splendid music, transporting her listeners into ecstatic delight." In May 2007 at the Ruhr Piano Festival, her performances of Beethoven's “Appassionata" Sonata and the Liszt Etudes met with similar acclaim. Two month later, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, she was awarded both the festival's own special prize and the audience prize. In 2008, she made her New York debut, playing a Liszt programme at the Yamaha Artist Center and performed the Liszt Etudes serveral times in Germany and Austria again. In May 2008 she stepped in for Murray Perahia in Basle, playing the “Waldstein" Sonata and the Liszt Transcendental Etudes and again elicited glowing reviews.
It is only natural, then, that Alice Sara Ott has chosen this Himalayan peak of the repertoire for her DG debut. The seeds of this cycle were sown in 1826 in the set of Etudes op.1, an early flexing of Liszt's pianistic muscles. Dedicated to his teacher Carl Czerny, those studies already outstripped him in novelty, adroitness and sparkle. Then in 1838, and in the revised version of 1851, Liszt transformed these rudimentary beginnings into a craggy, fiercely demanding work that, with the exception of Alkan's Etudes opp. 35 and 39, has never been surpassed in difficulty. But if the Transcendental Etudes are Liszt's truest lexicon of technique, his virtuosity was one of poetic response as well as dexterity: the visionary calm of “Paysage", the coruscating fioriture of “Ricordanza" and the massive chord sequences of “Harmonies du soir" are as vital to the cycle's cumulative effect as the heaven-storming onslaught of “Mazeppa" or the profuse and scintillating tracery of “Feux follets". In this sense, Chopin's influence is as important as Paganini's and the final and authentic version of the Transcendental Etudes is an awe-inspiring fusion of poetry and brilliance and one of the stiffest challenges in the entire keyboard literature. Clearly, Alice Sara Ott believes in stiff challenges, as she told Bryce Morrison:
"Yes, this cycle is an immense challenge, but as a 19-year-old pianist I leapt at the chance to record these wonderful Etudes. I am, after all, a lion born in the year of the dragon!"
神學第一 (6)