Liszt: Grande Étude , S137 (Batsashvili)

Whatever else the world may debate about his life and work, one thing is generally conceded: Liszt was the first modern pianist. The technical “breakthrough“ he achieved during the 1830s and ’40s was without precedent in the history of the piano—all subsequent schools were branches of his tree. The first indication of this breakthrough had come in 1837-39 with the appearance of the Douze Grandes Études; these works (along with the early Paganini studies) represented a treasure of keyboard resources not foun