Origin of the theory of Liszt's "piano revolution" 

The theory of Liszt's revolutionising piano playing was apparently an invention of Lina Ramann. She had in November 1876 asked Liszt whether his "Umwälzung der Klaviertechnik" ("Revolution of piano technique") had been due to Paganini's Caprices. on December 1 Liszt wrote to this that it was his biographer who had to decide, since he himself was unable to take an objective point of view towards his foolish own productions. It was his only consolation that they could have become even worse after all.

Lina Ramann's "decision" can be found in her Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch, Erster Band, Zweites Buch, p.106. According to this, Liszt's hands had been rather small and could hardly stretch a 9th. From Paganini's Caprices, according to Ramann, Liszt took the idea how to play wider intervals, and this was his entire "revolution". Ramann's theory is of course wrong. There were others who wrote wide intervals as well (for example Schumann, Chopin, Henselt, Thalberg, Döhler, Dreyschock and many further ones). To this comes that the theme of Liszt's Clochette-Fantasy was not taken from Paganini's Caprices, but from a violin concerto, and that there are no extraordinarily wide intervals in this particular piece. It is to be presumed that Liszt himself read Ramann's theory with astonishment.85.22.19.160