The works in this volume, chosen to reflect the breadth of narrative and characteristic piano music, illuminate certain largely forgotten musical histories. The highly popular genre of the descriptive piano fantasia, conceived and produced for the musical tastes and technical capabilities of amateur pianists, grew out of eighteenth-century narrative works such as Johann Kuhnau’s “Biblical Sonatas” (1700) and the anonymous Battle of Rosbach (ca. 1780). Starting with František Kocžwara’s Battle of...