Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)

Piano Concerto No.1 in E Flat Major
Piano Concerto No.2 in A Major Totentanz

Franz Liszt was born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of a steward employed by Haydn's former patrons, the Esterházy family. As a boy he showed extraordinary musical ability, and money was raised, after he had played to the Hungarian nobility in Pressburg (the modern Bratislava), to send him to Vienna, where he took lessons from Czerny and was kissed by Beethoven, impressed by the boy's playing, in spite of the fact that he was almost stone deaf. In 1823 the family moved to Paris, a city that Liszt was later to regard as essentially his home. From here he undertook concert tours as a pianist and it was here, in 1831, that he heard the violinist Paganini, and resolved to follow his example.

Liszt became one of the most remarkable pianists of his time, fascinating audiences in a way that has its modern parallel in the adulation