"Franz Liszt is a key Romantic figure. My idea was to draw his portrait… in music. I wanted to bring out the richness and complexity of Liszt through his different sources of inspiration. ... Franz Liszt was perfectly familiar with the ideas of his time: those of philosophers such as Lamennais and Saint-Simon, of writers such as Senancour, Sainte-Beuve, Byron, Victor Hugo. He took inspiration from them for many of his pieces: 'Vallée d’Obermann', for instance, or the 'Consolations'. And like all his contemporaries he was fascinated by the Faust myth, which was to haunt him until his very last works, such as the 'Bagatelle ohne Tonart', his final vision of Mephisto and music looking to the future…"