York Höller’s compositions, with their fascinating diversity of moods, timbres, and colors, have often been featured in the programmes of the Ruhr Piano Festival. Now, in a portrait recital, Hanni Liang presents a choice of works in which we can trace Höller’s development as a composer: from the early Five Pieces (1964), still entirely dodecaphonic, all the way to the Third Sonata (2010/11), a “music of crystalline textures and sonorities” (Bayerischer Rundfunk). In her fourth appearance at the Ruhr Piano Festival, Hanni Liang pairs York Höller’s piano pieces with a sonata by Mozart, whom Höller regards as his “utmost God in musical heaven,” and with Nuages gris by Franz Liszt, a composer whose modernity Höller frequently points out.