Liszt’s late explorations of non-tonal harmonic relationships

This article offers a detailed harmonic analysis of one of Liszt’s last completed compositions — Bagatelle sans tonalité — and positions the piece in the context of the composer’s life-long involvement with music theory. The influence of François-Joseph Fétis’ and Karl Friedrich Weitzmann’s theoretical writings are summarised in the context of Liszt’s strive towards abandoning all tonal implications and resolutions in a harmonically adventurous piece such as the Bagatelle. Neo-Riemannian theory and more specifically Tonnetz visualisations are employed throughout the analysis, in order to focus in detail on the chord-to-chord relations under chromatic voice leading, setting aside the potential functional implications of chords.

Keywords: Franz Liszt, music analysis, neo-Riemannian theory