This special method of Liszt is preserved at its best in the twenty Rhapsodies. The Magyar _Dallok_ had appeared already as studies. But these Rhapsodies far surpass them in polish. Hungarian national airs, with their rushing rhythmical and unrhythmical _verve_, were here for the first time taken up into the circle of art, and supplied the motives from which he poured forth a pyrotechnic display of brilliant variations, whose technique has not a single useless note, and whose working-out is indescribably delicate and harmonically interesting. Nos. 2, 6, 9 (Pester Karneval), 12 (to Joachim), and 14 (to Bülow), are not unjustly preferred to the rest. No 14, with its astounding development from the funeral march to the joyous stretto, has remained one of the most marvellous piano-pieces on record. In it an unparalleled technique is revealed, while the piece is not thereby rendered hollow or superfluous. [Illustration: Liszt lying in state. Bayreuth. 1886.] The charming Spanish Rhapsody, the Chopin-like “Consolations,” the wonderfully impromptu-like “Apparitions” and “Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses,” that grand congeries of various differently arranged and differently put together Études and drawing-room pieces, the “Années de Pélerinage” (three volumes) with the Tarantelle, the Paganini Études with the Campanella, further collections of Études till we reach the Twelve Études d’exécution transcendente, the “Dream Nocturnes,” the “Mephisto Waltzes and Polkas,” the “Caprice Valses,” the “Chromatic Galop”--I will only refer to a few pieces which possess a special historic or artistic interest. In 1834, as his first romantic production, appeared the “Pensée des Morts,” in mixed time, _senza tempo_, with mottos from Lamartine, for whom, with Chateaubriand, he felt the highest literary admiration. In the same year came out “Lyon,” a realistic piece on the uprising of the Lyons working-classes, and one of the few piano-compositions relating to contemporary events. “Sposalizio” and “Il Penseroso” (1838, 1839) are notable as pieces inspired by the impressions of the representative arts, as the somewhat feeble “Fantasia quasi Sonata” (1837) arose from the perusal of Dante. The whole of these are romantic confessions in which the arts greet each other in friendly wise. In importance, however, they are far surpassed by the later piano works; above all by the five best original pieces, the Legends, the Concertos, and the B minor Sonata. [Illustration: Music-room in the “Altenburg” at Weimar, with Liszt’s giant piano by Alexandre, Paris. In the background a clavier of Mozart’s.]