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Donald Macleod explores Liszt's symphonic poems. Now established in Weimar, Liszt protects his friend Wagner as he flees arrest.

In 1848, as revolution raged across Europe, Franz Liszt made the decision to walk away from his life as the most scandalous and brilliant piano virtuoso in the world - and settle down in the provincial German city of Weimar. Over the next twelve years he would forge a reputation as one of the most original composers of the Romantic Era - inventing a genre of composition that became known as the 'symphonic poem'. Liszt's new form of orchestral piece spun poetic or literary fables in music, evoking moods and images in its themes and harmonies, depicting heroes and villains, dramas and triumphs - a radical departure from the symphonic ideal of Beethoven and Brahms. This week, Donald Macleod presents a unique opportunity to hear all twelve of the symphonic poems Liszt created in Weimar - plus his final, valedictory symphonic poem, composed many years later, just before his own death.

As Liszt began to establish a reputation as a composer in Weimar, he also began to cultivate a reputation as an innovative and dynamic conductor. Liszt was diverted from his musical work by the travails of his friend Richard Wagner, who was fleeing arrest after inciting revolution in Dresden. Donald Macleod introduces the symphonic poems Mazeppa and Heroïde Funebre - both rarely played in the concert hall - as well as Liszt's take on the Orpheus myth.