PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

T
HIS SECOND COLLECTION of Liszt’s tributes to
the genius of Schubert is largely confined to song
transcriptions, and especially to the sets of pieces
based on the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise
and the posthumously assembled Schwanengesang.
Liszt’s methods and intentions in his Schubert song
transcriptions vary quite broadly. There are some simple
arrangements, in which vocal line and accompaniment
are wedded comfortably without much in the way of
decoration. Then there are works where the first verse of
a song is given unembroidered, but what amounts to a
set of variations follows, and oft-times the variation is
predicated by the text of the song. (Liszt’s number of
variations is sometimes greater or fewer than the number
of verses in Schubert’s songs, however.) Finally there is a
group of very freely treated songs where the transcription
endeavours to give full expression to the ideas behind
the song as well as the musical text itself. This last
phenomenon is the one which has caused most criticism
historically, and therefore warrants a little explanation.
There is no doubt that simply adding the vocal line to
the existing accompaniment does not often make a
meaningful transcription, even though it might make a
reasonable documentary account of the original notes.
Just as in his transcriptions of orchestral music by Beethoven,
Berlioz or Wagner, Liszt often conveys a precision
of sound and spirit by his conscious avoidance of literal
representation of the notes, so with the song transcriptions
does he often compensate for the sound of a great
singer in full flight in response to both words and music
by adopting an apparently new musical text. Sometimes
the tempo of a transcription, because of the variations in
the verses, may seem slightly different from customary
usage, but Liszt’s interpretations may also reveal to us a
different attitude and tradition towards tempo which
might otherwise not have survived. Of course, for much of
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the museum-culture-minded twentieth century, what
were perceived as Liszt’s gross liberties with the text were
sacrilegious, but any careful examination of Liszt’s
broader aims shows his comprehensive understanding of
Schubert’s idiom.
The Vier geistliche Lieder (‘Four Sacred Songs’)
were gathered together by Liszt from two sources: the first
three originals were published three years after Schubert’s
death, and the fourth was issued in a version with piano
by Schubert himself which seems to have escaped the
compilers of Grove. (The original Geisterchor did not
appear until even after Liszt’s death.) They were published
as a set of four, and almost immediately were reissued in
a set often with the Sechs geistliche Lieder (Gellert)
transcribed from Beethoven (in Volume 15 of this series).
Only the first of them is well known in song recitals—
Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen, D343a, (‘Litany for All
Souls’ Day’) is a requiem prayer which Liszt treats with
beautiful simplicity, even in the octave doublings of the
second verse. Himmelsfunken, D651 (‘Heaven’s Gleam’)
is a simple strophic song in contemplation of heaven,
which Liszt arranges as a theme with two variations.
Die Gestirne (‘The Firmament’, D444) is a setting of
Klopstock’s paraphrase of Psalm 19 (Vulgate 18), ‘The
heavens declare the glory of God’, and Liszt’s response to
Schubert and Klopstock is full of thunderous orchestral
grandeur. Hymne is actually the Geisterchor (‘Chorus of
Spirits’)—one of a group of vocal numbers from the
ill-fated incidental music to Rosamunde, D797, which
Schubert arranged with piano accompaniment (the
original is for chorus with brass) which appeared in 1824
as Opus 25, with this particular piece as No 3. (The title
of Schubert’s version with piano is confusing, because
‘Hymne’ applies legitimately to quite a number of
Schubert songs and choruses.) The text, a likely candidate
for the worst piece of German poetry, is by Wilhelmine von