In the late 1820s a Paris newspaper published an obituary for a teenage piano prodigy said to have been worked to death. Franz Liszt was alive, but in physical and spiritual collapse after his father’s death from typhoid and a forbidden romance with his student Caroline de Saint-Cricq. This episode traces his path from a village in the Kingdom of Hungary, lessons with Czerny and Salieri in Vienna, and rejection by Cherubini at the Paris Conservatoire, to a rebirth sparked by hearing Paganini in April 1832.

The episode follows his 14-hour practice days conquering the new iron-framed Erard pianos, the 1837 duel with Sigismond Thalberg, the frenzy Heinrich Heine named Lisztomania, and his invention of the solo recital played from memory with the piano turned sideways. It then covers his retirement from touring at 35, the Weimar years as champion of the symphonic poem and protector of Richard Wagner, the halted 1861 wedding to Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, the deaths of his children Daniel and Blandine, and his minor orders as Abbé Liszt.

• Why the Princess of Belgiojoso declared Thalberg the first pianist in the world but Liszt unique
• His donations to Cologne Cathedral, St. Stephen’s Basilica and relief after the 1842 Hamburg fire
• Transcribing Beethoven, Berlioz and Schubert for solo piano to reach audiences without orchestras
• The free masterclasses, the advice not to chop beefsteak, and a pedagogical bloodline still traceable today
• Late works like The Lugubrious Gondola with augmented triads and whole-tone scales that anticipated Debussy, Ravel and Bartók