Apart from being a soldier, Louis Ferdinand was also a gifted musician and composer.
Johann Friedrich Reichardt,
Kapellmeister to
Frederick the Great and
Frederick William II, considered him a great pianist. Early on Louis Ferdinand also started to compose music, but he was not recognized for his compositional activities until later. His early pieces were performed by the orchestra of
Prince Henry, the younger brother of Fredrick the Great. Later on, Prince Louis Ferdinand joined several salons in Berlin, where he frequently improvised on the piano. Among his circle of acquaintances were figures such as
Schlegel,
Wackenroder, and
Tieck, all of whom were highly interested in music.
Ludwig van Beethoven dedicated his
Third Piano Concerto to him, a sign of high esteem for his piano playing.
Anton Reicha's massive variation cycle, ''
L'art de varier'', was also written for Louis Ferdinand. Due to his early death, there are only 13 published musical compositions by Louis Ferdinand with
opus number. Most are
chamber works, with the exception of the two
rondos for piano and orchestra (Op. 9 and 13). Like
Chopin, all of his surviving works feature the piano. Despite his limited oeuvre, Louis Ferdinand's music was innovative for his time, in a style that was more expressive and individualistic than the prevailing
Classical mode, and he is widely considered to be a pioneering composer of the
Romantic movement;
Robert Schumann, for example, called him "that most Romantic of all princes". His close friendships with Tieck, Schlegel, and Wackenroder, all founding figures of
German Romanticism, may have had an influence on his worldview and consequently his music. In 1842,
Franz Liszt wrote an
Élégie sur des motifs du Prince Louis Ferdinand de Prusse, S. 168, for piano solo. == Musical works ==