PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

e a homage to Schumann whom he constantly admired,
but Clara took offence, thinking that Liszt had wanted to
show his superiority. In the later edition 1 the Schumann
no longer appears, two hands are required rather sooner,
the technical demands are somewhat moderated, and the
spirit is generally more reflective.
Liszt’s second study is based on Paganini’s seventeenth
Caprice. Apart from the familiar thinning of
textures, the second version 2 sounds similar to the
first 8, but the differences in the arrangements of the
hands to make the best musical solutions between the
one version and the other are subtleties worthy of close
observation. (For many years it was the fashion to
‘improve’ the little valedictory coda Liszt composed for
this work with a crass flourish. Fortunately this practice
has almost entirely ceased.)
The third study is commonly known by its title in the
second edition, La Campanella, a reference to the little
bell employed by Paganini in the rondo of his Second
Violin Concerto. Uniquely in this study, Liszt does not
preserve Paganini’s original tonality (B minor) or structure.
In the ‘Clochette’ Fantasy, Liszt transposed the main
theme and a ritornello theme from the Second Concerto
into A minor. In the first version of the study 9, he used
A flat minor—which puts all the nastier leaps between
black notes, which are much easier to target—and mixes
in a repeated-note elaboration of the first theme of the
rondo of Paganini’s First Violin Concerto transposed into A
flat major from the original D major (or E flat, as Paganini
first conceived it). This study turns out to be quite a
boisterous affair and could not be in greater contrast with
its second version 3, now in G sharp minor (for ease of
reading, no doubt) and with the theme of the First
Concerto expunged. La Campanella has, over the years,
often been utilized by unthinking players as some gigantic
warhorse, whereas (and just listen to Joseph Lhévinne
3
play it—even on a piano-roll!) it is clearly a study in quiet
playing with a mystical quality to it. It is marked Allegretto
until the last pages and only grows in volume towards the
end. Forte never occurs, but fortissimo is indicated
once—just for the last eleven bars.
Paganini’s first Caprice (which quotes Locatelli’s
seventh) is the basis for Liszt’s fourth study. In the first
edition it appears in two versions, the one accompanying
the original arpeggiated chord with further arpeggios in
the left hand bp, the other doubling the arpeggios in both
hands bl. Even though they are both marked Andante
quasi Allegretto, they inhabit the very edge of the
technically possible with their stretches, leaps and handcrossings.
Liszt adds grand melodic lines in counterpoint
to the straightforward broken chords of the original. In
the 1851 version 4 the piece is marked Vivo and the
music is printed, uncannily like Paganini’s original to the
casual view, on one stave; the hands intrically alternate in
a neatly woven replica of the Caprice, shorn of all added
melodies.
La Chasse is the nickname often given to Paganini’s
ninth Caprice—a study in double-stopping—as well as
to Liszt’s fifth study which is based upon it. Both Paganini
and Liszt mark the opening theme as imitando il flauto,
and the lower repetition as imitando il corno. The
spiccato phrases tossed from one register of the violin to
another in the middle section are cleverly adapted by
Liszt, right down to some rather violinistic fingering which
produces just the right articulation. The first version bm is
somewhat thicker in texture than the second 5, and
Liszt’s staccato scales in octaves and chords in the first
version become double glissandi in the second. The first
version also has a simpler alternative text for the majority
of its length. This produces in effect another version of the
work whose character is quite different, and so it is
included here bq.