Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1
Franz Liszt may have
been one of the nineteenth century’s most exasperating underachievers, to say
nothing of committing the unforgivable sin of success on a staggering scale, but
he was a genius. This concerto can remind us. Begun in 1835 at the ripe
old age of 24, Liszt did not complete his first piano concerto until nearly
twenty years later. A final draft appeared in 1849, which was revised
before the 1855 premiere (conducted by Hector Berlioz), and then revised yet
again before its publication in 1856. Béla Bartók called the concerto
“the first perfect realization of cyclic sonata form, with common themes being
treated on the variation principle.”
