Bagatelle sans tonalité S216a (1885)

Although it was known to some of Liszt’s last pupils, the Bagatelle sans tonalité was completely forgotten until the manuscript came to light in Weimar in 1956. As the German titles on the front page show, this astonishing work was actually intended as the Fourth Mephisto Waltz: Bagatelle Without Tonality is added as a subtitle. If is not actually atonal – analysts seem to agree that it is in D – tonality is seriously threatened by the onslaught of tritones and altered chords that largely characterise the harmonies of a waltz skeletal in texture and surreal in effect. Its scherzando main theme gives way to an accelerating, appassionato middle section of crotchet chords alternating between the hands. A short cadenza intervenes before the recall of the scherzando material is recalled, developed and finished off by a disorientating crescendo of diminished sevenths.