No. 1: "St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds"

This piece was composed, drawing its "spiritual motivation" from the anecdote recorded in Chapter 16 of the medieval biographical work The Little Flowers of St. Francis, which describes the saint preaching to birds. Born in Assisi, a town in central Italy, Saint Francis (1181-1226) is one of the most revered saints in the history of the Catholic Church and is also known as the founder of the Franciscan Order.

The first 70 measures are predominantly in the treble clef, with soft trills, arpeggios, and intricate 32nd-note figures depicting the chirping of birds. Furthermore, a recitative-like monophonic melody symbolizes the saint. The saint's sermon is also represented mid-piece by a chordal melody with a solemn sound in flat keys. The concluding section once again becomes a dialogue between the birds and the saint, ending quietly with the bird motif.

Approximately 90 years before Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began developing his "bird song series" of compositions from the 1950s onwards, Liszt, who richly colorized the chirping of birds, truly deserves to be called a "musician of the future" (Messiaen himself composed a three-act opera, Saint Francis of Assisi, based on the same subject matter as Liszt).