PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

Two versions of the fantasy on Les Huguenots have already appeared in this series – the original
version in Volume 50, the final version in Volume 42. The second version, recorded here, is
almost identical to the first except that it allows for a large cut and a smaller one (neither
observed here), and replaces the original frenetic final section with a grand statement of the
Lutheran choral Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott – which coda is also adopted in the final version.
In many ways this version is the best text of all, because it allows us the whole duet, which the
final version does not, and yet has the better ending.
In the case of the Sonnambula fantasy, the second version appeared in Volume 50, and the final
one in Volume 42. The present version is the first, although it was announced as a revised version
when it first appeared, simply because the very first edition went out without any dynamics or
other performing directions. The musical texts are otherwise identical.
The Chernomor March from Ruslan i Lyudmila appeared in its final form in Volume 6 – Liszt at
the Opera I. By the time of the revision the language of the title had changed from French to
German, and the text was somewhat simplified. The present version finds some quite different
textures in its various treatments of Glinka’s splendid material, and Liszt’s coda (Glinka’s
original does not have one) is another composition altogether in the later version (which was
further recomposed when Liszt made his version for piano duet).
The Valse à capriccio is that rare specimen of a fantasy upon themes from two different operas
(Liszt also combined Figaro and Don Giovanni – see Vol 30), and in the first version also
contains material at the end which comes from neither of the operas in question: Donizetti’s
Lucia di Lammermoor and his lesser-known Parisina. If the later version, called Valse de concert
(see Vol 30 – issued as the third of Trois Valses-Caprices, along with the final versions of the
Valse de bravoure and the Valse mélancolique – see Vol 1) is a more subtle and refined piece, the
early version contains a good deal of interesting music which was cut in the later piece. (The
revision, however, restored the four bars missing from the F sharp major waltz – reinstated here
by analogy with the corresponding passage eight bars earlier – an error not corrected in any
subsequent publication of the early version.) For listeners familiar with the later version, it will
be easily seen that the two pieces are similar in structure until the point where the first version
breaks into a brisk 2 / 4 variation where the second version proceeds directly to the peroration. In
the first version the waltz is resumed, but in 3 / 8 , and the themes from the two operas are
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