PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

why Liszt made such far-reaching structural alterations to the works when he adapted much of their
material to form numbers 3 to 15 of the Rapsodies hongroises. Many interesting pieces were dropped,
and whole themes or sections of other works were not retained in the later versions. In addition, themes
were exchanged between pieces. But if we listen to the present set with an innocent ear, the selection
and combination of themes seems more than adequate.
Magyar Dalok Nos 1 to 7 were published (in two books, the second of which just contained No 7) in
1840. No 1 is cast as a melody chanted, as it were, by a bass voice, with choral answers to each line.
Then a second statement of the material presents the chant in treble octaves with deeper responses.
The piece is in a very free rhythm without time signature. No 2 is a simple dance-song in , while No 3
is a lament with a florid variation. Nos 4 and 5 were also issued as Nos 2 and 1 of a triptych called
Ungarische Nationalmelodien (on Volume 27 of the present recordings) and eventually provide the
material for the first two sections of the sixth Hungarian Rhapsody. The first melody of No 6 is very
similar to the lugubrious main theme of No 12, but the second theme is a jaunty contrast. After a
cadenza which Liszt asks for but fails to supply (the present writer is responsible for deriving a cadenza
from the second cadenza in the piece, which Liszt does provide), the first theme is varied, the second
returns, with concluding cadenza and the first theme is varied again. This simple form was to expand
greatly in the later numbers of the set. No 7 is a much larger work, and was later adapted to form the
fourth Hungarian Rhapsody.
Magyar Dalok Nos 8 to 11 appeared in two volumes each of two pieces in 1843. No 8 is really a funeral
march, while No 9 is the first example of the familiar verbunkos form of the later numbers and most of
the Rapsodies hongroises: the slow lassú (or lassan as Liszt usually gives it) followed by the fast friss
(or friska), in this case the first section being extremely florid and imitative of the cimbalom, and the
second section being punctuated by a slower interlude. No 10 begins with a pair of themes which were
later incorporated into the Hungarian Fantasy for piano and orchestra (which was otherwise derived
from the fourteenth Hungarian Rhapsody), while the ‘Allegro vivace’ theme is very similar to the
second theme of the Rákóczi March. No 11 begins with the intensely dolorous material which later
engendered the third Hungarian Rhapsody, and it concludes with the same moto perpetuo theme which
provided both the third of the Ungarische Nationalmelodien and the final section of the sixth Rhapsody.
Magyar Rapszódiák Nos 12 to 17 were issued in six volumes by 1847, and they are much larger works
than the preceding numbers. It is extraordinary that the later, straightforward fifth Hungarian Rhapsody
should be the progeny of the splendidly ornate No 12 of this set, the change of texture is so great. No 13
is one of Liszt’s seven surviving complete piano versions of the Rákóczi March, and was later diluted
into the less ornamental fifteenth Rhapsody. The ornaments were the first casualty in the rewriting of
No 14 into the eleventh Rhapsody, and the later version makes an unforeseen excursion into an ‘easier’
key for a more frenetic coda than the present rapid broken tenths in A major permit. No 15 similarly
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