Ferenc Liszt took an interest in the organ at the zenith of his career. He had of course played the instrument before, but did not write an original composition for it until 1850. The fantasy and fugue of that year, which he based on a melody (Ad nos ad salutarem undam) from Meyerbeer’s opera, Le prophète, became a seminal work of the Romantic literature for the organ. In other words, Balázs Szabó’s concert ends with the iconic piece with which Liszt opened a series of exceptional compositions.
Liszt wrote organ versions of several of his own works – orchestral compositions, piano pieces, vocal movements –, and his own contemporaries also made transcriptions, which Liszt carefully examined, and revised if necessary – a case in point was the transcription of the symphonic poem, Orpheus. He himself would probably have not been surprised how a piece that exploits the characteristic possibilities of the piano can sound good on the organ – as is the case with Balázs Szabó’s transcription of Fountains of Villa d’Este.