Decoding the music masterpieces: Liszt's Consolation in D flat — serene sweetness and melancholy

By Stephanie Mccallum, Associate Professor Piano Division, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

Dreamy, slow-moving and gentle, the D flat Consolation is far from our accepted picture of Liszt, which is often taken from caricatures of his solo recitals: wild hair and eyes, hands flying off the keyboard.

It was written at a crucial turning point for the composer. Liszt’s colourful early life was chronicled, in a one-sided way, by his first mistress, and mother of his three children, Marie d’Agoult, under her nom de plume, Daniel…

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