Memento Pages - Miniatures

This selection is intended to reveal a less-known aspect of the genius of Franz Liszt, the greatest pianist of the 19th century: as a master of piano miniatures.

While his large-scale works written over many years show Liszt as a striving composer for whom the creative process was difficult, at the same time, hidden in the shadow of the monumental peaks, the 'moments musicaux' tend to capture him in the process of improvisation, at the moment when a compositional idea flashed into his mind and was first noted down.

The miniatures that feature in our selection trace his creative path through six decades (1827-1885), from his youthful testing of his wings right up to his finalfarewell. The manuscript of any piece that did not later become part of a cycle or the starting-point for a larger-scale composition generally remained in the mists of obscurity as a treasured memento preserved by one of his pupils or admirers.