Portrait of Franz Liszt by Albert Eichhorn (1811-1851) Private Collection / Roger-Viollet, Paris / Bridgeman Art Library, London CDA67810 Recording details: April 2009 All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom Produced by Rachel Smith Engineered by David Hinitt Release date: January 2011 DISCID: F2125010 B20E8620 Total duration: 139 minutes 41 seconds 'These CDs, the 98th and 99th in Leslie Howard's epic Liszt series, amount to something more than the latest necessary purchase for completists: indeed this latest batch of previously unknown or long-forgotten items assembles into a pleasingly comprehensive musical portrait … To all this Howard brings his by now happily familiar way with Liszt's idiom. As ever, he beautifully allows the composer's spontaneous, improvisatory streak to speak as naturally as it likes, and needs to … Memo to fellow-Lisztians: don't hesitate' (BBC Music Magazine) 'The dedicated and industrious Leslie Howard continues to supplement his monumental complete recording of Liszt's piano music … Throughout, Howard's fine feeling for colour and superb rhythmical sense abounds … Intriguing new material is presented with the discernment and sympathy which have become the hallmark of Howard's Liszt series' (International Record Review) 'As always, Howard's annotations reveal a high level of detective work, musical insight and scholarship without pedantry' (Gramophone) 'An extraordinary tour de force of pianism, musical detective work and scholarship, well recorded and impeccably annotated as always. It honours Liszt's memory in the best possible way by illustrating his many-faceted genius' (Classic FM Magazine) Liszt wrote two major works on Spanish themes during his Iberian travels in 1844–5. Neither was published in his lifetime. The Grosse Concert-Phantasie über spanische Weisen first appeared shortly after Liszt’s death. He had prepared it for publication, and dedicated it to his biographer Lina Ramann. (It was reprinted in the 1997 Liszt Society Journal.) A later work based on material collected and/or worked-on in the 1840s is the celebrated Rapsodie espagnole, and this appeared as late as 1867. The Romancero espagnol (Spanish Song-Book), whose title and date we know from Liszt’s correspondence, was intended to be published in 1847 with a proposed dedication to Queen Isabella II of Spain, but for some reason the publication never took place. From the correspondence we can see that Liszt clearly considered the work complete, although there is one small lacuna and, as often with Liszt until the last moment, the ending is not fully written-out. The pages of the MS are not numbered, and are not bound together. An archivist at the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, presumably Peter Raabe, has placed a large question-mark at the top of what is surely the beginning of the work, but has then written ‘Spanische Rhapsodie’ at the top of the page where the final jota begins (the theme is the same as that in the Rapsodie espagnole, but in a different key, and very differently treated), and has altered the order of the pages, placing this section at the beginning—a musical impossibility, since this section recalls earlier material in the peroration. Careful reshuffling of the pages gives us a piece in three clear sections, each based on a different theme. There is an introduction, setting up the dichotomy between the tonalities of E major and C major—this material will be recalled towards the end of the work—then an elaborately varied fandango, largely in C major, but straying as far afield as A flat. The central section is a set of free variations on an imposing, stately theme in E minor, of title unknown, and the finale, based on the Jota aragonesa, takes us to E major with excursions into C major. Earlier themes are recalled and combined, especially in an alarmingly difficult passage in two time-signatures at once. The work was published for the first time in the Liszt Society Journal in 2009. Two pieces from Liszt’s vocal score of his masterpiece Christus appeared separately in print in his lifetime (see volume 14 of the present series). We offer here two further movements, both from the vocal score as arranged by the composer: Einleitung und Pastorale (Introduction and Pastorale) and Das Wunder (The Miracle). As always with Liszt, the piano versions are not literal transcriptions, even if the music agrees in general, bar for bar with the original. But he finds pianistic ways of expressing the spirit of the music in a manner far preferable to the clunking literalism of the modern vocal score of the oratorio currently in print. The Introduction is the opening of the whole work, based on a plainsong setting of the prayer in Isaiah Rorate caeli (Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and fill the skies with righteousness), whilst the Pastorale represents the shepherds in waiting for the angel’s annunciation of the birth of Jesus. The Miracle represents the passage in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 8: ‘And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he [Jesus] was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.’ This is a minature symphonic poem, with some quite outstandingly daring harmonies during the storm. The voice of Jesus is briefly heard, and then the gentle music of the miracle that follows is amongst the simplest and most touching in Liszt’s entire output. The MS of the Magnificat is the first draft of the imposing piece later called Alleluia (S183/1—in volume 7 of the Liszt series), and remains unpublished. Liszt actually marks it ‘gilt nicht’ (not valid), but it is interesting to compare this work with the slightly more complicated final version. The Trois chansons are transcriptions of vocal pieces, but we do not know the exact sources from which they were made. The MS of Liszt’s three choruses for men’s voices (or quartet of solo men’s voices) and piano is dated 20 July ’45. There, and in the edition immediately issued by Knop in Basel, are two settings of Trost—the first in E flat, the second in C—and one of Nicht gezagt!, poems by Dr Theodor Meyer-Merian (1818–1862). A later version of these songs from 1860, for unaccompanied men’s voices, forms numbers 4–6 of Für Männergesang S90 (republished in the 2001 Liszt Society Journal). Here the poems are now misattributed to the tenor Karl Götze, and the order of the second and third numbers is reversed. The three are united under the title Geharnischte Lieder (‘Songs in Armour’), and bear the subtitles: Vor der Schlacht, Nicht gezagt! and Es rufet Gott uns mahnend (‘Before the battle’, ‘No hesitation’ and ‘God exhorts us’). Liszt made straightforward piano transcriptions of these versions (S511, published in 1861, recorded in volume 36 of the Liszt series). The present transcriptions appeared from Kahnt in Leipzig in 1852, and this edition is performed here. They are each marked—although not on the title page—as transcribed by Corno, otherwise August Horn (1825–1893). La consolation resembles the music of the setting of Nicht gezagt!, even though its title is a translation of Trost! Avant la bataille follows the C major setting of Trost—curiously, not the one which became Vor der Schlacht—and L’espérance follows the E flat setting, i.e. the pieces are in reverse order to the 1845 choruses. The many deviations of the musical text from the choruses are too far-reaching for there not to be some other missing intermediate source, and they are much too full of Liszt’s obvious contribution as composer and arranger for them to be considered the work of anyone else, unless Horn was actually working under Liszt’s direct instructions. In any case, we have only this text of an otherwise unknown version of this work of Liszt’s so, until further information should be discovered, we are obliged to admit it into the canon. (These pieces are reprinted in the 2008 Liszt Society Journal.) The Album-Leaf in A flat major S166p and the Album-Leaf in G major S166q came to light at an auction in 2004, where the present writer managed to copy them before they were sold, in the case of the A flat piece not to surface since, whereas the G major piece is now in the possession of the Istituto Liszt in Bologna. The A flat piece was the only music in a private album, otherwise empty, the second was on a small folio enclosed within the first, and alongside a loose programme of a Liszt recital in Kiev in February 1847. The A flat piece is very similar to the middle section of the second of the Glanes de Woronince (see volume 27), and is upon the same melody that Chopin used in the song The Maiden’s Wish, which was itself later transcribed by Liszt (see volume 5). The second is a shorter account of the sixth Consolation in its first version, with an accompaniment pattern rather more adept to the salon than to private meditation (cf the other versions in volumes 36 and 9). The Variations ‘Tiszántuli szép léany’ are mentioned in several catalogues, but there is little evidence of Liszt’s hand in the composition, which exists only in a copyist’s copy, which itself contains a number of amateurish slips of the pen. It seems more likely to be the work of a friend, whom Liszt may have helped, much as he did in the case of a number of compositions by his Hungarian friends. The score is headed: ‘Változatok “Tiszántuli szép léany” cimu Pal Feleti—Liszt Ferencrol’ (‘Variations “Pretty girl from Tisza district”, copied by Feleti Pal—by Ferenc Liszt’). Liszt must have been particularly fond of the Romance: Lyubila ya (‘I love you’) by Michael Wielhorsky (1788–1856) since he made two published versions of it for solo piano (see volumes 40 and 35) as well as two intermediate MS versions and an Album-Leaf. They are all worth hearing, and the tune itself is quite haunting. Schlummerlied is an intermediate version of the seventh number of the Christmas Tree suite. It is a copyist’s copy of the first version, containing several alterations. This MS was in the possession of Liszt’s student Carl Lachmund (1857–1928), who edited it for Schirmer. The ‘édition facilitée’ of the popular Valse-Impromptu is almost certainly Liszt’s own work, since it contains a number of felicitous strokes that an ordinary house arranger would not have dared to include, so it is included for safety’s sake. It was published by Peters and credited solely to Liszt. The Marche des pèlerins chantant la prière du soir is the unpublished first version of Liszt’s transcription for solo piano of the second movement of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie (cf the much later second version in volume 5 and the transcription for viola and piano in volume 23 of the Liszt series) and is much closer to Berlioz’s text. Later, Liszt would eliminate all the wide stretches so common in his works of the 1830s and 1840s, and would find an alternative solution to the problem of transcribing the passage where the viola accompanies a chorale—by repeating the whole passage in a varied manner. For some reason, Liszt returned to his transcription of the Einzug der Gäste auf Wartburg: Marsch aus Richard Wagners Tannhäuser in 1876 and, whereas the published editions had all been very faithful to Wagner’s text, allowed himself a little free improvisation before the principal theme appears, and made numerous further changes, sometimes of harmony and even of structure. These new alterations were written into a copy of the 1874 edition, and this version appeared in print for the first time in the excellent Neue Liszt-Ausgabe. The Adagio non troppo appeared in print in the mid-1820s, but is identical to the introduction of the Allegro di bravura (see volume 26), while the early Album-Leaf: Andantino was previously recorded incomplete because the MS had disappeared since the opening 26 bars were published in an auction catalogue. Now the MS has resurfaced, and the piece is recorded here complete. The remaining album-leaves and fragments require little comment: they often come from well-known works, and were offered as keepsakes, and every now and then there is a theme which we do not know elsewhere in Liszt’s work. Several of them stand almost as independent pieces, but often we see only an incipit of a larger work. The MS of Wilde Jagd: Scherzo is dated Eilsen, second week of January 1851. Although it is clearly an earlier version of the Scherzo und Marsch, it is a rather longer piece. The MS shows a number of later alterations in preparation for the published work, but these have been ignored here in order to present the complete original text. In any case, there must have been a definitive MS of the Scherzo und Marsch (whereabouts presently unknown) containing all of the alterations merely commenced in the present work. The first part of the title (‘Wild Hunt’) was, of course, transferred by Liszt later in 1851 to the eighth of the Études d’exécution transcendante. It is not clear when the few extra bars at the coda (the final flourish) were added—they are not the same as those in the later version, so they are included here. The piece was published for the first time in the Liszt Society Journal in 2009. Leslie Howard © 2011 Works on This Recording 1. Romancero espagnol, S 695c by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 2. Pieces (2) from Christus, S 498c by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 3. Magnificat, S 182a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 4. Chansons (3), S 510a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 5. Albumblatt for Piano in A flat major, S 166p by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 6. Albumblatt for Piano in G major, S 166q by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 7. Variations on "Tiszántuli szép léany", S 384a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 8. Romance, S 577i "Lyubila ya" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 9. Schlummerlied, S 186/7a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 10. Valse impromptu for Piano, S 213 by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic ■ Written: circa 1850; Weimar, Germany ■ Notes: 11. Marche des pèlerins from Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," S 473 by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic ■ Written: circa 1836; Geneva, Switzerland 12. Entrance of the Guests from Wagner's "Tannhäuser", S 445 no 1 by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic ■ Written: 1852; Weimar, Germany 13. Adagio non troppo, S 151a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 14. Albumblatt for Piano in E flat major, S 163a by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic ■ Written: 1828 15. Albumblatt for Piano in E flat major, S 167r by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 16. Albumblatt for Piano in C major, S 167s "Lyon" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 17. Albumblatt for Piano in C major, S 163e by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 18. Albumblatt for Piano in C major, S 164l "Andante religioso" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 19. Albumblatt for Piano in G major, S 167l "Agitato" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 20. Albumblatt for Piano in G major, S 166j "Andante religiosamente" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 21. Albumblatt for Piano in E flat major, S 167o by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 22. Albumblatt for Piano in G minor, S 167j "Fugue chromatique" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 23. Albumblatt for Piano in E major, S 167k by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 24. Albumblatt for Piano in G minor, S 166l/2 by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 25. Albumblatt for Piano in C sharp minor, S 166o by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 26. Albumblatt for Piano in D flat major, S 164k by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 27. Albumblatt for Piano in D flat major, S 167g by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 28. Albumblatt for Piano in D flat major, S 167p by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 29. Albumblatt for Piano in D flat major, S 167q "Schlusschor des entfesselten Prometheus" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 30. Albumblatt for Piano in D flat major, S 164e/3 by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 31. Prozinsky Fragment for Piano, S 701v by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 32. Albumblatt for Piano in A major, S 167n by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 33. Albumblatt for Piano in A major, S 166s by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 34. Albumblatt for Piano in E major, S 167t by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 35. Albumblatt for Piano in E major, S 163d by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic ■ Written: 1840; Weimar, Germany 36. Albumblatt for Piano in B minor, S 166r "Purgatorio" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 37. Grandes Etudes (6) de Paganini, S 141: no 6 in A minor, Quasi Presto - Introduction by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 38. Cadenza, S 695f by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 39. Albumblatt for Piano, S 167m "Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic 40. Scherzo for Piano, S 176a "Wilde Jagd" by Franz Liszt ■ Performer: Leslie Howard (Piano) ■ Period: Romantic