In summer 1881 Franz Liszt composed a work that he called “Valse oubliée” (Forgotten waltz) in a letter to his publisher. The work is reminiscent of the appealing piano waltzes that the composer used to write when he was younger – although there is a certain distance to the usual waltz style. Liszt by no means renounces virtuosity and elegance, but rather infuses these characteristics with nostalgia and irony by embedding typical melodic and rhythmic elements of salon waltzes in innovative, harmonically alienating progressions. In the years that followed he wrote three further “Valses oubliées”, yet number 1, published here in a single edition, has remained the best-loved of these “Forgotten waltzes” by far.
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Preface
In late 1880, the Hanover publisher Arnold Simon returned to Franz Liszt (1811 – 86) the manuscript of a piano romance which Simon had accidentally rediscovered. Liszt had written it in 1848, but the work had never been published and the composer had long since forgotten about it. The piece was an arrangement of a song written in 1843 and published the following year, Les … more
Critical Commentary
About the composer

Franz Liszt
The most famous piano virtuoso of the nineteenth century is regarded as the most influential artist and composer (with Berlioz, Wagner) of the so-called New German School. His immense musical oeuvre comprises, above all else, works for solo piano, including numerous transcriptions; he also devised the symphonic poem. Important, too, are his sacred and secular choral works and songs.
1811 | Born in Doborján/Raiding (Sopron) on October 22, son of an official in the service of Prince Esterházy. First piano lessons from his father, early first attempts at composition, first public performance at age nine. |
1822 | Relocation of the family to Vienna, studies with Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri. |
1823 | Relocation of the family to Paris. Composition studies with Ferdinando Paër and Antonín Reicha (1826). Performances in salons, concerts. |
1824–27 | Concert tours through France, to England and Switzerland. Composition of opera paraphrases for piano. |
1830 | Acquaintance with Berlioz, self-study by reading. He becomes Parisian society’sfavourite pianist and piano teacher. |
1835 | He moves to Switzerland with Countess Marie d’Agoult: their first child together, Blandine-Rachel, is born here. He continues concertizing in Paris. |
from 1839 | Continuous concert tours throughout Europe. |
from 1847 | Symphonic poems, including No. 2, “Tasso: lamento e trionfo”; No. 1, “Ce qu‘on entend sur la montagne” (‘Bergsymphonie,’ ‘Mountain Symphony’); “A Faust Symphony in Three Character Pictures”; “A Symphony to Dante’s Divine Comedy” (‘Dante Symphony’); as well as [No. 11], “Hunnenschlacht” (“Battle of the Huns”). |
1848–61 | Kapellmeister in Weimar; he advocates for progressive music (Wagner, Schumann, Berlioz). |
1857–62 | Oratorio, “The Legend of St. Elisabeth.” |
1861–68 | Resident in Rome. |
1865 | Takes minor holy orders. |
1866–72 | Oratorio, “Christus.” |
1871 | Appointed Hungarian court councilor; he lives in Rome, Weimar, and Budapest. |
1886 | Death in Bayreuth on July 31. |
About the authors
Ein Meisterwerk, das auch Rubinstein und Horowitz im Repertoire hatten und das jeder Liebhaber der Klaviermusik des 19. Jahrhunderts in seinem Notenschrank haben sollte.