Liszt understood a “rhapsody” to signify the highest degree of musical freedom: a constant process of transformation and variation of themes and motifs, all bound up with constant shifts of emotion. According to one of its early reviewers, this first of Liszt’s 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies is a prime example of “the art of thematic working such as no previous master has practised more fantastically, more expressively or more inventively”.

Despite this, it was somewhat overshadowed by the greater ...