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I've recently started working on the Op.1 version of the Ricordanza, for Grade 7 AMEB, and so have been looking a little bit closer at the final TE version, too, out of curiousity.

I'm wondering: in what is this supposed to be an exercise?

Is it something like light fingering in fast and delicate passage-work? I guess the middle section is an exercise in voicing a single note melody over a bunch of chords, but the Op.1 version doesn't seem to focus on much in the first section, to me. It's very early Liszt, and so very amateur and unpolished (compared to the TE version), so a lack of focus might be part of that... but I'm not sure. On what should I be focusing while practising this?

Yes, it's something like that - and don't forget shaping the singing melody in the first section as well. Of course, there is nothing very transcendental about this Opus 1 version of Ricordanza - it is simply an early sketch. I'm surprised it is included in the AMEB. Hopefully you'll learn the final TE version someday - well worth the effort !!

When it comes to Liszt Transcendental Etudes I think it's usually hard to pinpoint one thing that the etude is an exercise in. Most have very big and fast jumps, lots of passagework for both hands, etc. You could say Chasse neige is an exercise in tremolos, but I think the jumps are much harder to pull off than the tremolos, for example. You could say Feux Follets is for double notes, but the double notes themselves aren't that horrible, it's everything together that makes it hard.