Work: La Lugubre Gondola for piano, S 200 no. 1

In around 1822, an eleven-year-old Franz Liszt performed for Beethoven. It’s claimed that Beethoven gave him his blessing and kissed him on the forehead. A lifetime later, in 1885, Liszt wrote La lugubre gondola, a harsh, drastically dissonant piano piece commemorating the death of Wagner.It’s easy to forget how short the nineteenth century was.

The "second year" of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage takes us an a tour around Italy's artistic treasures: painting by Raphael, sculpture by Michelangelo, poetry by Petrarch and Dante and music (allegedly) by Salvator Rosa.