This previously unknown manuscript is of exceptional interest as it dates from a period of Liszt's creative life that is otherwise very incompletely documented. The late 1820s were a period of personal crisis for the young Liszt during which he appears to have relinquished composition almost entirely, but the July Revolution of 1830 fired his creative imagination, inspiring a fascinating sketch of a Symphony celebrating the Revolution (now in the Goethe-Schiller Archiv und Franz-Liszt Museum at Weimar). Until now this creative re-awakening seemed to have been short-lived: after hearing Paganini in 1831 Liszt devoted much time and energy to re-fashioning and extending his pianistic technique, and published no original composition until the Apparations of 1834.

The present sketch-book offers substantial evidence that in the immediate aftermath of the July Revolution Liszt was actively considering a number of projects, the nature of which are tantalisingly hinted at in various notations: pour le Septuor (f.5r); Concerto (f.6r); pour Piano et Violon (f.17r); Concerto (f.22r). The sketches range in nature from thematic outlines to passages of pianistic figuration. None have been identified as relating to published compositions, except for the first, which strikingly anticipates one of the main cyclic themes in the B minor Sonata (published in 1854)