Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Complete Piano Music, Volume 11
Transcriptions of Vocal Works by W. A. Mozart, Eduard Lassen, Robert Franz, Otto Lessmann and Josef Dessauer

Time and again at Weimar I heard Liszt play. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century. Liszt was what the Germans call Erscheinung - an epoch-making genius.

- William Mason (1829-1908), American pianist, composer and teacher in Memories of Musical Life.

The art of transcription essentially began when the earliest composers took a theme by someone else and created an improvisation or a set of variations. It was not uncommon among Bach's works to find transcriptions of Vivaldi or other composers, re-cast in a different instrumental costume. So it cannot be said that Franz Liszt invented the concert paraphrase or transcription. But what can be said, is that Liszt, like no other