Donald Satz wrote:

>Of the two, I have to pick Liszt as the most indulgent because of a
>combination of his personality and music-making.  Except for the last piano
>works he composed, Liszt's music most reminds me of a petulant child who is
>always going over-board in his declamations.  Any other opinions?

The trouble is that Liszt was one of the more influential figures of the
time.  He explored much in the way of orchestration, harmony and invented
the Symphonic Poem, which also created with it the idea of thematic
metamorphosis..  One of the extracts in my A Level anthology was Les
Preludes and this shows it very clearly.  Certainly he put a new spin on
piano writing.  Being an innovator, it is not often the case that the best
music, or more perfectly wrought music is created by the innovators, more
by those who follow in their footsteps, so the Sons of Bach and to some
extent Scarlatti defined the classical style but it was Mozart and Haydn
who wrote the best music in it.  Similarly with Beethoven, although he
wrote loads of excellent music, Brahms took his models to their zenith.

David Stewart
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