La Campanella (Italian for “The little bell”) is the nickname given to the third of Franz Liszt‘s six Grandes études de Paganini. It is in the key of G-sharp minor. This piece is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini. Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced metaphorically by a “little handbell”. – Khatia Buniatishvili
