Liszt, Franz

Wiki entry: Franz Liszt

International Music Score Library Project [IMSLP] entry: Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) is widely recognised as one of the great pianists of all time. Many of his piano pieces, in particular, have a fearsome reputation.

PieceMP3MidiGenre
La Campanella MIDI   piano   virtuoso  
La Campanella, the `little bell', is an arrangement for solo piano by Liszt of the third movement, rondo, of Paganini's second violin concerto. Paganini was a famous violinist, alleged to have been in league with the Devil, such was his demonic style and appearance.
Composed in 1851 as the third of Liszt's Grandes Etudes de Paganini; revised from an earlier version of 1838.
Sequenced from a copy in my library, published by Breitkopf & Hartel, and checked against versions in IMSLP.
Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 MIDI   duet   salon   classical  
This is the most famous, and most abused, of Liszt's Ungarische Rhapsodien. It consists, as usual, of two parts, a slow Lassan and a fast Friska.
This particular version is a `simplified' [ha!] version for piano duet, as arranged by Franz Bendel von Lothar Windsperger [1833-1874], a pupil of Liszt, perhaps in 1872. A lot of the original is more-or-less left in, but it goes completely off the rails in places.
Sequenced initially in 2001 from a copy of the Schott edition in my collection. A number of evident mistakes have been corrected, a few possibly intended ones left in! Pedalling, for example, is often not to my taste, but is as marked.
Hungarian Rhapsody No 11 MIDI   CD1   piano   classical   virtuoso  
Liszt's Ungarische Rhapsodien XI in A minor was written in 1847 and published in 1853. It is dedicated to Baron Fery Orczy [1835-92, a very minor composer, better known as the father of Baroness Orczy, author and political activist who wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel, the book of a play first performed in Nottingham in 1903].
Like most of the Hungarian Rhapsodies, it is two parts, slow and fast. Here each half is also divided into two parts; firstly a Lento a capriccio emulating a zither, followed by an Andante sostenuto; and in the second half a spiky Vivace assai which builds to a Prestissimo.
Sequenced primarily from the Peters Edition, edited by Emil von Sauer. IMSLP also has a 1973 Urtext edition, which I looked at briefly, but haven't used seriously.


Sequencing: Copyright © Andy Walker, 2020. You may use all my work freely for private purposes; commercial use is permitted only with my permission.

    Andy Walker, anw [at] cuboid4.me.uk [remove digit to construct address]