Among the 25 orchestral works that Liszt wrote, the thirteen tone poems make up the biggest single category. He gave these works their final form during his years as kapellmeister at the Weimar court (1843–59), and dedicated them to his beloved, Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein.

The numbering of the first editions doesn’t reflect the order of composition: the first tone poem that Liszt composed was Tasso (first performance: 28. August 1849); it was followed (in the order of the first performance) by Bergsinfonie (Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne) and Prometheus (1850), Orpheus, Les Préludes, Mazeppa and Festklänge (1854), Hungaria (1856), Die Ideale, Héroide funèbre and Hunnenschlacht (1857), and finally Hamlet (1876).

Nearly all the tone poems are based on literary sources or historic myths and reflect philosophical ideas, with the exception of Festklänge, which was intended to be the wedding march for Liszt’s planned wedding to Carolyne, and Hungaria, which extols the praises of the composer’s native country. Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (1881/2) was not written during the Weimar years: this later addition can be seen as an epilogue penned in the wisdom of old age.

Of Liszt’s ten original compositions for piano and orchestra, at least four can be described as piano concertos, among them Malédiction S.121. But Liszt only numbered two of them for publication. Listened to one after the other, they create an impression of extreme opposites. This much is apparent from the basic keys of E flat major and A major, which couldn’t be farther away from one another. The majestic Piano concerto No.1 is clearly structured in three movements, while the second concerto has a single movement with a six-part structure that superimposes variation and sonata form. Notwithstanding, the two works seem to refer to each other.

As Liszt also appeared for many years as a concert pianist, he also left quite a number of arrangements for piano and orchestra of other composers’ works. Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy he turned into a captivating piano concerto, even though it does stick for the most part to the form of the original.

This is the first complete German recording of Franz Liszt's 13 tone poems, his two symphonies and the big works for piano and orchestra. Recorded by the Leipzig Gewandhaus under Kurt Masur in 1980–81, this issue set international standards in the Liszt discography.