Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

’s Grand galop chromatique, S.219, from 1838 in E-flat major is one of his typical bravura

Bravura

In classical music, a bravura is a virtuosic passage intended to show off the skill of a performer, generally as a solo, and often in a cadenza. It can also be used as an adjective , or to refer to a performance of extraordinary virtuosity. The term comes from the Italian language for great skill....

 pieces that would have brought the house down during his European concert tours. Liszt is not the only composer who has written flashy galop

Galop

In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...

s. Johann Strauss

Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I , born in Vienna, was an Austrian Romantic composer famous for his waltzes, and for popularizing them alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons to carry on his musical dynasty...

, Lanner

Josef Lanner

Joseph Lanner was an Austrian dance music composer. He was best remembered as one of the earliest Viennese composers to reform the waltz from a simple peasant dance to something that even the highest society could enjoy, either as an accompaniment to the dance, or for the music's own sake...

 and even Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 left us galops. A galop was a very popular quick dance in which the partners were joining a line of dance circling around rapidly in springing steps, not unlike galloping horses. The galop was especially popular in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 during the first half of the 19th century.

The galop chromatique was published in 1838 as a piano solo version and also as a piano duet version (S.616). A simplified version for piano solo also exists as S.219bis. Liszt’s idea to employ chromaticism

Chromaticism

Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...

 to heighten the effect of virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 excitement is very clever and shows how the composer’s inspiration at that period was driven by pianistic instinct and expertise. The galop chromatique was Liszt’s "war-horse" during his flamboyant years and its effect on the audience was mesmerizing.

Among 20th century pianists, Gyorgy Cziffra notably attained enormous audience success with this piece.