While he also became a great admirer and friend of the conservative Beethoven follower Johannes Brahms, Tausig became one of the stanchest champions of the "music of the future"[1] and the New Weimar School founded by Liszt.

In 1866 with two others he opened a school for virtuoso pianists "Schule des Höheren Klavierspiels",[1] known as the "Virtuosenakademie", teaching there and occasionally giving recitals.

Some of his students were Rafael Joseffy, Alexander Michalowski, Andrey Schulz-Evler, Sophie Menter, Vera Timanoff, Amy Fay, and Gustav V. Lewinsky.

[3] He made several concert tours in Germany and Russia,[1] and throughout Europe, and was now considered a pianist of breadth and dignity of style.

In June 1871 toward the end of his life, too weak to concertize, he was cared for by his longtime friend, Marie von Mouchanoff-Kalergis, a pianist who in her youth had been a pupil of Chopin,[3] and to whom Tausig had dedicated his first composition, an Impromptu.

While his fingers were working miracles at the keyboard without any digital errors, the only sign of tension from Tausig would be a slight tightening of one corner of his mouth.

[6] Until his early death, some critics surmise that Tausig may not have had a pianistic equal, combining Liszt's force and range of tone color with the intellectuality of his fellow pupil Hans von Bülow.

He said that while Liszt's musical conceptions were grander, Tausig possessed a better and more accurate technique coupled with a good deal of poetry.

Some compositions are unfinished in existing manuscripts, left incomplete by Tausig for reasons unknown, most particularly a number of the transcriptions of Liszt's symphonic poems.

Artur Cimirro recorded Tausig's complete extant original piano works for the Acte Préalable CD label in 2016.

Many other modern-day pianists have recorded Tausig compositions, such as Rian de Waal, Carlo Lombardi, Giulio Draghi, Stephen Hough, and Menachem Har-Zahav.

Rachmaninov also made recordings of Tausig's transcription of Schumann's Der Kontrabandiste (also recorded by Josef Lhévinne, Josef Hofmann, Emil Gilels, and many others) and Tausig's Pastorale in E minor, adaptated from Scarlatti's harpsichord Sonata, L. 413, the latter also being popular with several other pianists of that era, including Vladimir Horowitz.

The Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor adaptation and the Schubert/Tausig Marche Militaire were also quite popular in recordings, the latter being recorded by Eugen d'Albert, Leopold Godowsky, Mischa Levitzki, Lhévinne, Ignaz Friedman, Egon Petri, Wilhelm Backhaus, Alexander Brailowsky, Horowitz, and György Cziffra.

Winifred Christie even recorded the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor adaptation on her husband's invention, the Moór-Duplex piano.