Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a pianist, conductor and composer who had been known not just for the Hungarian Rhapsodies, Mephisto Waltzes, and the "Years of Pilgrimage" collections of piano pieces, but also operatic piano arrangements, especially on operas of either his day or in the past.

Liszt was known for inventing the modern piano recital, after Chopin, one of his contemporaries, mastered the art of the "small-space salon recital with his own piano works."

About 60 operatic piano transcriptions exist, but for these lecture recitals in this album, I will focus on only these 2 transcriptions---

1. "Reminiscences of Don Juan" (inspired by Mozart's scenes of his opera, "Don Giovanni"), and;

2. "Reminiscences of "Robert le Diable'" (meaning 'Robert The Devil" in English, this is an account of the infernal cavern waltz in the opera and several other scenes, from this devilish opera, "Robert le Diable", by Giacomo Meyerbeer)

The structure is that I will do the lecture on each of the opera transcriptions and they will be followed immediately by the performance of each one.

The lecture-recital scripts were supposed to be a 400–500-page formal doctoral thesis-turned-dissertation, but it was cut back to 120 pages. The lectures I delivered in that recital were summaries of that, and after the lectures, I was able to do a doctoral defense on the actual script and I passed the defense with nearly flying colors later on in October 2002.

And it is live! At Smith Memorial Hall at the Smith Hall at the 2nd floor of this music building at the University of Illinois campus, just on the southeast edge of the famous Quad at the campus, just near the Foellinger Auditorium.

Get ready for exciting Liszt piano music that you may have never known until you hear it.

And to be honest, I am also a permanent member of the American Liszt Society now, so I hope this helps you to hear this new album, which is now the second classical music album I have released on Bandcamp.