In the late 1820s a Paris newspaper published an obituary for a teenage piano prodigy said to have been worked to death. Franz Liszt was alive, but in physical and spiritual collapse after his father's death from typhoid and a forbidden romance with his student Caroline de Saint-Cricq. This episode traces his path from a village in the Kingdom of Hungary, lessons with Czerny and Salieri in Vienna, and rejection by Cherubini at the Paris Conservatoire, to a rebirth sparked by hearing Paganini in April 1832.

The episode follows his 14-hour practice days conquering the new iron-framed Erard pianos, the 1837 duel with Sigismond Thalberg, the frenzy Heinrich Heine named Lisztomania, and his invention of the solo recital played from memory with the piano turned sideways. It then covers his retirement from touring at 35, the Weimar years as champi ...