This edition of the three concert études is the first and only, for which the composer's autograph has been taken into consideration. This allows Liszt's popular piano cycle to be seen in the most authentic form available today. No closer information has emerged about the origins of the études, which appeared in 1849. The autograph, which contains all three studies in complete form, with elaborated notation and furnished with performance markings, appeared in a catalogue in the mid-1930s. But after it was bought by the French pianist François Lang (1908-1944), there were doubts about its whereabouts for several decades. So even Volume I/2 of the complete New Liszt Edition published by Editio Musica Budapest in 1971 could rest only on the notation of the first printed editions.

The new version edited by Adrienne Kaczmarczyk that appears here pays close heed to the points where knowledge of the manuscript calls for alteration and addition. The autograph, also used as the engraver's copy, confirms an earlier suspicion. The widely used subtitles (1. Il lamento, 2. La leggerezza, and 3. Un sospiro) were thought to be alien to Liszt's approach, and are now known not to originate from the composer. They were presumably dreamed up by a Paris publisher.