PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

As he did so often in the early fantasies, Liszt composed
his piano work within the year of the first performance
of Halévy’s most celebrated work La juive. Using
motifs from Acts 3 and 5, Liszt produced a work of much
originality; the shape of the opening Molto allegro feroce
is entirely his, even if the thematic fragments are Halévy’s,
and it is not until the recognizable martial chorus (Marziale
molto animato, from bar 131) that he uses a whole
theme. The succeeding Boléro is only loosely based on
Halévy, but is the theme for two variations. The Finale
(Presto agitato assai) begins as if it were a third variation
but gives way to frenetically foreshortened recollections of
the march and the introductory material. The ferocious
opening foreshadows the ‘infernal’ music of Liszt’s
Weimar period, but also shows immediate kinship with
the Valse infernale from Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable,
with which the La juive fantasy was reissued—along with
the Huguenots fantasy and the Don Giovanni fantasy—
in about 1842.
The Niobe fantasy has always been familiar in Liszt
legend, even if the music itself is very rarely heard,
because it was a piece he played in his famous ‘contest’
concert with Thalberg in 1837. Pacini’s vast output—
almost ninety operas—has been moved long since to the
library stacks, whence it seems unlikely to emerge. But
his little cavatina ‘I tuoi frequenti palpiti’ (‘Your frequent
flutterings’) proved an exceptional vehicle for Liszt, both
as a composer and as a public performer. The long
opening section is based upon a mere fragment of the
aria, and is treated with a humorous ingenuity. The lyrical
slower section elaborates a simple melodic idea with
extravagant ornaments in imitation of the operatic
practice of the day. The introductory material returns,
with even more brilliant harmonic excursions, culminating
in the use of the whole-tone scale (Liszt’s first use
of it as far as the present writer can determine) and finally
3
Pacini’s theme appears complete, but immediately subjected
to fantastic variation and ever-increasing urgency as
the piece flies to its frolicsome conclusion. (This piece,
published as Opus 5 No 1—followed by the Fantaisie
romantique sur deux mélodies suisses and the Rondeau
fantastique sur un thème espagnol: El contrabandista—,
is performed on this recording from the original
Schlesinger edition, and under its original title. The reissues
bear the title Divertissement sur la cavatine ‘I
tuoi frequenti palpiti’ de Pacini, and differ musically by
making two small cuts, of one bar before the central
Larghetto and of nine bars before the final Stretto, and
with a number of simplifications to the technical
requirements.)
The Festspiel und Brautlied (‘Festal Music and
Bridal Song’) from Wagner’s Lohengrin was issued with
two other numbers transcribed from the same opera in
1854. The first number was revised for the 1861 edition
and that version has appeared along with its companions
in Volume 30. The chief differences between the two
versions are: that the whole of the Prelude is repeated in
the first version, whilst in the second it is truncated; and
that the textures of the first version, especially at the big
brass melody in the Prelude, are much lighter. (The
central Bridal Song is unchanged.)
Liszt first composed his Sonnambula fantasy in 1839,
and the final version of it appeared in 1874 (see Volume
42; the first version will appear in Liszt at the Opera VI).
The final version was clearly made using a copy of the first
version as a starting-point, and Liszt seems to have forgotten
that he had made a second version, for the Ricordi
edition, soon after the first one. (To make matters more
confusing, but to be completely accurate, there was an
edition before the ‘first version’, which is note-for-note
identical but lacking almost all dynamics and performance
directions, hence the description on the definitive