I couldn't find any specifics on Tarantella but this is the info I got about his influences:
Liszt was a prolific composer. Most of his music is for the piano and much of it requires formidable technique, although in his later years his compositional style became less overtly virtuosic and more harmonically experimental. (A famous example of this later style is Nuages Gris, it can also be seen to some extent in the third volume of the Années de Pèlerinage.)
In his most famous and virtuosic works, he is the archetypal Romantic composer. Liszt pioneered the technique of thematic transformation, a method of development which was related to both the existing variation technique and to the new use of the leitmotif by Richard Wagner. In the 1840s and 1850s he invented the symphonic poem, which is a single-movement orchestral work usually based on a literary work or a character sketch. Liszt's inspiration came from classical literature, including "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne," based on a Victor Hugo poem of the same title, and "Les preludes" from Lamartine. Other pieces are based on works by Lord Byron, Goethe and Dante. Liszt's symphonic poems represent his ideal and philosophy of "The Music of the Future", in which music and art and literature would all join together in a grand synthesis. Although the symphonic poems were generally successes, they were often criticised by those who preferred the traditional absolute music as exemplified by Johannes Brahms.
His transcriptions met with less criticism. As a transcriber of even the most unlikely and complicated orchestral works, he created piano arrangements which stood on their own merits; many other pianist-composers followed his example.
Liszt at the piano, 1886. An engraving based on an old photograph.
Liszt at the piano, 1886. An engraving based on an old photograph.
His piano works have always been well represented in concert programs and recordings by pianists throughout the world. Many of his works have been recorded a multitude of times. However, the only pianist who has recorded his entire pianistic oeuvre is the Australian Leslie Howard. The project took almost 15 years to complete, and comprised 95 full-length CDs. Howard was awarded a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having completed the largest recording project ever in the history of music (including both pop and classical). The series has also earned several Gramophone Grands Prix du Disque, and a special award from the Hungarian government. This massive undertaking included a number of premiere recordings, including many unpublished pieces, recorded from manuscript, which had not been played by anyone since Liszt himself.