Franz Liszt
Not all Liszt’s piano pieces were original compositions: he also made arrangements or transcriptions. It seems a strange idea to us now to take someone else’s symphony and arrange it for piano. This is what Liszt often did. He took symphonies by Beethoven or songs by Schubert and changed them so that they could be played on the piano. Many people did not have the opportunity to hear concerts very often, and they certainly did not have radios or CDs, so Liszt was making these works more famous, helping them to reach a wider audience. He often made difficult transcriptions which meant that he changed the pieces and added ornamental notes, making a new piece out of an old one.