PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

preferred Hungarian style: Liszt Ferenc. Extraordinarily,
there are still some modern editions of the Rhapsodies
that simply omit the last four (although Peters Edition has
recently added them in exchange for the inappropriately
included Rapsodie espagnole that originally ended the
second volume). As we have previously remarked, Liszt
deliberately employed Roman numerals to distinguish this
set from the earlier publication, where Arabic numerals
were used.
In the present recording, the main texts of the pieces
are presented. Various earlier versions and alternative
readings will be found in Volume 56. But since Liszt wrote
two cadenzas for the second Rhapsody, one of them is
included here. The pieces themselves probably need very
little introduction: many of them adopt the pattern of the
slow first section (lassú) and second fast section (friss)
familiar from so much improvised Hungarian music, and
yet the variety of expression is astonishing. In the introduction
to the volumes of the Rhapsodies in the Neue
Liszt-Ausgabe, the editors Zoltán Gárdonyi and Istvan
Szelényi make the following important observations: ‘It is
not merely for reasons of authenticity that the present
new edition is intended to put an end to the various and
often completely contradictory interpretations of Liszt’s
Hungarian Rhapsodies. To this day these works are principally
but erroneously looked upon as more or less trivial
products of keyboard literature for the very reason that
they use folklore themes and employ them in the style of
popular gypsy bands. We have here the reason for the
general inaccuracy in performance and the tendency to
indulge in vivid though rough showmanship. It is high
time that Liszt’s Hungarian folklore studies were placed
before interpreters in all their variety and their idiomatic
richness. It should be pointed out that in performance,
despite all the virtuosity they demand, mere technical
bravura should never predominate. If the Hungarian
3
Rhapsodies—apart from the Héroïde élégiaque—have
no programme that can be formulated in words, we must
not overlook the poetic basis of both their content and
their expression.’
Compact Disc 1
RAPSODIE HONGROISE I was begun no earlier than 1847, and
uses material from the third of the Consolations in their
first version (see Vol. 36). (There is also an incomplete
manuscript, entitled Rêves et fantaisies, missing both the
beginning and the end of a much more complicated work
which is clearly the forerunner of the present piece, in the
Goethe-Schiller Archive.) The piece is in the familiar
csárdás pattern of lassú and friss: fast and slow sections,
each with a mixture of elements of improvisation and
variation. There are two themes in the slow section: the
first—presented when the music finally settles for E
major after the introduction—was either composed or
adapted by Ferenc Erkel in 1844; the second, which
appears after a cadenza taking the music to D flat major,
is by Gáspár Bernát, and was published in 1847. The fast
section is based on a theme composed by Károly Thern in
1842.
RAPSODIE HONGROISE II is virtually Liszt’s best-known
work and has been performed to great effect even by Bugs
Bunny (Rhapsody Rabbit, Warner Bros., 1946) and by
Tom and Jerry (Cat Concerto, MGM, 1946—Academy
Award). It is the only one of the first fifteen rhapsodies not
based on any earlier Liszt composition, and it is not known
from where any of the themes originate. The very opening
theme is noted in a Liszt sketchbook of 1846 as something
he had heard performed, but the remainder of the
material might well be original. The piece may date from
as early as 1847, but it was not published until 1851.
Towards the end of the fast section Liszt writes ‘cadenza ad
libitum’, and many pianists have added their own impro-