Sigismund Thalberg, Liszt s rival, was one of the great pianists of the nineteeth century. Before an 1837 keyboard duel between the two, Liszt penned an essay charging Thalberg s music with impotence and monotony. Modern tastes have awarded Liszt the palm, but, as pianist Stefan Irmer points out here in his own booklet notes (in German, French, and English), observers at the time would not have been unanimous in that judgment. He includes a hilarious commentary by Heinrich Heine, not naming Liszt but praising Thalberg in terms that unmistakably refer to him: The frail women are no less fond of [Thalberg], even though he does not appeal to their sympathy with epileptic fits on the piano, even though he does not speculate on the extreme sensitivity of their tender nerves....