Over a four-decade span Liszt turned to a sequence of transcriptions drawn from operas by Verdi and Auber. Auber’s La muette de Portici (‘The Mute Girl of Portici’) marks the beginnings of French grand opera, to which Liszt responded with two versions of a Tarantelle that differ relatively little from each other but offer formidable challenges to the performer in their increasingly complex virtuosity. His elaborate variations on Auber’s La fiancée and his concert paraphrase on Verdi’s Ernani and on a prayer from I Lombardi (called Jérusalem in the French staging) offer their own profoundly expressive textures.