This limited edition recording is the first of a series of productions performed by pianist Martin Berkofsky and sponsored by the Cristofori Foundation for the purpose of raising funds for charitable causes. The genesis of the Cristofori Foundation occurred in 1982, when Berkofsky recovered from a motorcycle accident that left his right arm broken in eight places, an injury that left little expectation among his doctors that he would ever perform again. At age thirty-nine, he was faced with the end of an international concert career that had begun thirty-one years before, when, at the age of eight, he had made his performing debut on Washington, D.C., television.

His was a pianist's standard career: a bachelor's and then a master's degree at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore; a critically-acclaimed New York Town Hall debut; winning the New York National Music League Young Artists' Competition, which included a five-year contract to tour the United States; co-directing a chamber ensemble with two successful New York seasons; two Fulbright grants; guest of Yale University's Sanford Fellowship; a two-year residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris; music professorships in Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, and the United States; holding master classes at many major music conservatories. In addition, he had performed in more than twenty-five countries-at venues as grand as Vienna's Musikverein and as modest as cinemas in Icelandic fishing villages-and produced nearly one hundred and fifty radio and television broadcasts. He had also recorded with both the London and the Berlin Symphonies.

After his recovery, Berkofsky decided that he could no longer conduct business as usual. The accident itself was a turning point and he envisioned his subsequent recovery as a gift in return for which he would use his regained abilities to help others. His first benefit concert was for the hospital. Additional beneficiaries from his performances were Iceland's national concert hall and music school scholarship and instrument purchase funds. While serving on the advanced piano faculty at the Izmir State Conservatory, he raised funds with one campaign to help the ethnic Turks who had been expelled from Bulgaria, and with another concert helped to purchase communication equipment for his fellow radio amateurs in Turkey.

In his home town in the Virginia countryside, Berkofsky-along with seven other artists-organized a concert which raised $20,000.00 to help a neighbor who was receiving a heart transplant pay her medical bills. He has given a series of performances to help a West Virginia orchestra raise operating funds. He also worked closely with the Nicolae Bretan Music Foundation in their efforts to bring world attention to the music of that Romanian composer who having been banned during the Communist years, died unknown in 1968.

Berkofsky has chosen to play four works of Franz Liszt, the pianist-composer-abbe for whom Berkofsky has felt an affinity since childhood. What first captivated the young pianist was Liszt's combination of intellect, emotion, and spirituality. "Liszt wrote for the universe," he says. The composer's work personifies what Berkofsky considers the ultimate meaning and purpose of art: "Great music inspires one to a higher purpose because it itself is inspired from a higher purpose and vision."

A review from one of Berkofsky's many Liszt performances that commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the composer's death commented that Berkofsky gave "such an expressive and nuanced performance that he held the audience spellbound to the end of the concert. We did not know at which to wonder first: the total concentration, the expressive performance, the mature individuality, the brilliant pianistic technique, or the intimate experience of the music for which, that evening, Berkofsky lived. It was a musical experience never to be forgotten." Says Berkofsky, simply, "The job of a musician is to bring beauty and inspiration to others, and to do this through the most honest and humble search to find those same qualities within ourselves. How fortunate we are to be part of this life of creating beauty, giving it to others, and dedicating our efforts to creating a more beautiful world."