For his third album on naïve, Jean-Paul Gasparian sets the scene by borrowing the title from one of the most memorable and delightfully unrestrained films by the Marx Brothers, released in 1935. There is no risk of faltering or slapstick here,however, so dazzling is the French pianist’s command of technique at every turn. The keyboard sparkles with flashes of brilliance, fingers taking flight like mischievous imps that will resonate in the listener’s imagination.

This recital is built around paraphrases and transcriptions that Franz Liszt fashioned from themes and motifs by Verdi (Rigoletto, Don Carlos, Aida, Il trovatore), Bellini (Norma) and Wagner (Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde). By engaging with these grand Lisztian recreations, alongside the brief and serene Casta diva as reimagined by Sigismond Thalberg, Jean-PaulGasparian - only in his thirties - returns to the historical sourcesof his own tempestuous, radiant style, which is at once impassioned and deeply romantic, and in which brilliance and poetic depth are seamlessly interwoven.