The manuscript of the complete version of this work was found by composer and Liszt scholar Humphrey Searle in the 1930s in Weimar. Shortly afterward, he showed it to Bartók, who expressed interest in it and, with a little persuasion, sat down and played it. No publisher at the time of its discovery could be persuaded to issue the work and it had to wait until 1950 when the English Liszt Society finally published it. Late piano works of Liszt are generally dark, stripped of virtuosic flash, and often deliberately repetitious. This effort has those features, though it is more colorful than many of the compositions Liszt was writing in 1880s, and its repetitions are atmospherically effective. The piece really is not a Csárdás since it does not begin with a slow (lassu) section followed by a fast or wild (friska) section. It features a dark theme, which dances about with more than a hint of humor and chipper spirit. Yet it is macabre in its dark and sinister harmonies and its often barren sonorities, which impart a desolate sense at times. While this seven- or eight-minute masterwork is not extremely taxing for the soloist, neither is it easy to play.

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