Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer and the era's most dazzling piano virtuoso, whose concert tours triggered such fan hysteria that Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania." He pushed piano technique to new extremes with works like the Transcendental Études and Hungarian Rhapsodies, pioneered the orchestral tone poem, and later in life turned to more austere, harmonically experimental sacred music. His influence on the technical and expressive vocabulary of Romantic piano music was foundational.

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1850

Liebestraum No. 3Franz Liszt