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A greater contrast with the preceding piece than the Festvorspiel would stretch the imagination: comfortably, even ponderously in C major, the piece was composed for a collection published in Stuttgart in 1857 called Das Pianoforte. Its subtitle ‘Prélude’ may only refer to its being the first piece is the miscellany by different composers (Liszt’s MS also bears the work’s original title: ‘Preludio pomposo’), but the piece has the style of an academic processional march.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1994