This is the early version of the better known Grand Etudes of Paganini, S141, of 1851. These six etudes are actually transcriptions of six of Paganini's Caprices for violin solo. In the early nineteenth century, the Italian violinist Paganini made an incredible impression throughout Europe by raising violin technique to a level deemed impossible by all prior standards. The Caprices were Paganini's written compendium of his technical accomplishments. Liszt set himself the goal of accomplishing a similar task for the piano, and appropriately used Paganini as his compositional impetus. Unlike the Twelve Études Op. 6, though, this is no student work, but Liszt's own compendium of his innovations in piano technique. Although he followed the musical form of the caprices exactly, Liszt expanded the texture to orchestral dimensions. Beginning where Chopin left off in his etudes Op. 10 and Op. 25, Liszt raised piano virtuosity to levels previously unimagined. The result was a unique and brilliant style attainable only by the greatest virtuosos. This earlier version of the Paganini etudes was probably unplayable by anyone but Liszt at the time of its composition, and remains only rarely attempted today. The later, revised version (S 141) is technically easier, and thus generally more effective in performance, and is therefore the version usually heard. Regardless, it is this early version that established Liszt as the pre-eminent piano virtuoso of his time and revolutionized piano composition forever.

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La Campanella is one of the most popular and characteristic of Franz Liszt's huge output of showy piano etudes. As is often the case, it exists in more than one form and is also a setting of music by an earlier composer.

In matters of style and showmanship, Liszt profoundly admired the great Italian violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini (1782 - 1840). Paganini virtually invented the persona of the touring virtuoso, drawing huge audiences and commanding stellar fees on the basis of his star power. He drew unprecedented technical effects from the violin, often achieved by specially tuning the strings to notes other than standard, allowing himself to create unusual double stops and to allow the violin to ring in resonance on unexpected notes. Liszt similarly built his public performances around a carefully constructed stage persona and an ability to stun the audience with brand-new feats of virtuosity, some taking advantage of technical advances incorporated in newer pianos. He could unleash torrents of chords and whispering or chiming sounds that were new to music altogether, and in general play the part of the creative artist, the new hero of Romantic literature and music.

In 1838 he completed a set of six piano pieces collectively entitled Études d'exécution transcendante d'après Paganini (Etudes of Transcendent Performing Difficulty, after Paganini). It is number S. 140 in Searle's catalog of Liszt's work.

For the third of these etudes, Liszt turned to an earlier work, his 1831 Grande fantasie de bravoure sur La clochette, S. 420. This is an elaborate youthful work based on the finale of Paganini's Second Violin Concerto in B minor. This finale uses an old song called La Campanella (the little bell; "la clochette" in French) and accordingly uses many bell effects both in the violin and the orchestra. Liszt was an inveterate reviser of his own music and by the time he was 27 realized that the Grand Bravura Fantasy on La Clochette was an inflated, unnecessarily elaborate piece blown to overly large proportions by a lot of empty musical air.

For the new Paganini Transcendental Etudes he drastically cut and further refined the music. Even so, he had another go at the six etudes and produced a new revision in 1851 under the title Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141. (He stripped off the adjectival phrase "d'exécution transcendante" and stuck it onto another revision he produced in 1851: The former Vingt-quatre grandes etudes, S. 137—of which they were actually only 12—became the Études d'exécution transcendante, S. 139, the famous Transcendental Etudes.)

In either of its two forms Liszt's etude is the third in its set and is a dazzling, sparkling piece. It lasts about five minutes. With utmost inventiveness it plays the delightful Paganini-arranged folk theme amidst a continuous ringing of tinkling high notes. Liszt achieves many different bell effects by various means in his writing, which remains exceptionally difficult even in the rather more efficiently written later version. Properly played, it rarely fails to delight.

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