• John McCabe
  • Fantasy on a Theme of Liszt (1967)

  • Novello & Co Ltd (World)
  • piano
  • 10 min

Programme Note

This piece was written in 1967 for a Cheltenham Festival concert that year, though its first performance took place in the BBC Music Programme. The theme which lies behind the work is the opening tune of Liszt's Faust Symphony, though, to the confusion of some commentators at the first performance, this is never heard in its original shope in this piece but is used as a thematic reservoir from which all the piano figurations are derived, as are many of the chords. The work was written as a tribute not only to Liszt but to two other great composers whose influence may be felt here and there, Chopin (the approach to form as shown in his Ballades especially) and Schumann. The Fantasy is dedicated to the American composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann.

© John McCabe

Discography