Franz Liszt

Complete Etudes for Solo Piano Series 1

Liszt's reputation as perhaps the greatest pianist of all time is powerfully supported by his dazzling body of work for solo piano. The undiminished popularity of his etudes with pianists and audiences alike have made them among the most performed and recorded works for solo piano in the Romantic reportoire. The first volume, Series 1, include many of Liszt's most inspired piano works and are edited by the great pianist, composer and musical scholar Ferruccio Busoni for the Franz Liszt Society and published by Breitkopf and Hartel in Leipzig in 1910-11. Each set of Etudes is a highly successful work in its own terms and are all fiendishly difficult. The separate ' Mazeppa' is yet another working of one of the etudes from these sets. The individual etudes range dramatically in style from the delicate refinement of 'Feux Follets' to the startling bravura of 'Wilde Jagd' (both from Transcendental Etudes). Each will bring to pianists and their listeners a moving encounter with the genius of this towering musical personality