8vo: [4]-206-[1] pp. Scattered modern notes in pencil, very occasional foxing of first ff. Contemporary half sheep, brown cloth on boards, gilt-stamped flat spine, very rubbed, joints split, head missing. In modern folder and slipcase. Provenance:  contemp. signature (Greulist?); Nicole Casanova (b.1934) French writer and translator (mod. bookpl.); Laurent Mannoni (b. 1966, son of Nicole Casanova?), film historian and exhibition curator.

Rare first book edition of Liszt's tribute to Chopin, who had died three years prior. Originally published in periodical format across several issues of "La France Musicale" in 1851, the book edition was published simultaneously by Escudier in Paris, Schott in Brussels, and B&H in Leipzig, the present being a copy of the B&H publication. 

Franz Liszt and Chopin both lived in Paris in the 1830s, so they knew each other well, although they were not close friends. Chopin always claimed that no one played his piano Études better than Liszt, and even dedicated his Opus 10 to him, which he began at the age of 19 in 1829 and completed in 1832. 

The two composer-pianists differed sharply in their personalities, musical styles, and career paths, but Liszt deeply admired Chopin’s music, and its influence appears from time to time in his own compositions. Immediately after Chopin’s death in 1849, Liszt decided to write a book about his lost colleague. He began the project by sending a biographical questionnaire to Chopin’s sister, but she chose not to answer it, apparently offended either by its haste (her brother had been dead for only a few weeks) or by its nosiness. Working with the assistance of his mistress, Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein (who was Polish herself), Liszt managed to complete the book nonetheless, although it contains more personal ruminations than biographical details. The extent of the Princess’s contribution has been much debated; some scholars attribute the book chiefly to her, but Liszt’s principal biographer, Alan Walker, holds that the first edition, which was serialized in 1851 and published in 1852, was mainly Liszt’s work, while the second (1879) was chiefly hers.