Composer, bon vivant, pianist, teacher, superstar showman, raconteur, writer, entrepreneur, ladies' man, philanthropist, and priest, Franz Liszt is widely viewed today not only as a great composer, but also as the greatest pianist of the 19th century. Yet his enormous body of piano music, by turns poetic, glittering, acrobatic, prophetic, profound, and haunting, failed to command the acclaim it deserved in his lifetime. In Liszt, John Bell...