(Schirmer Performance Editions). Liszt made significant contributions to piano literature. Consolations and Liebestraume were first published in 1850 and have become Liszt's most approachable and recognizable pieces. With historical and performance notes and audio recordings. Late Intermediate Level.
Masterworks of the 19th-century composer include Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor, Consolation No. 3 in D-flat major, Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat major, La Campanella (Paganini Etude No. 3), and 9 others.
Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was an anomaly. A virtuoso pianist and electrifying showman, he toured extensively throughout the European continent, bringing sold-out audiences to states of ecstasy while courting scandal with his frequent womanizing. Drawing on new, highly revealing documentary sources, including a veritable treasure trove of previously unexamined material on Liszt’s Weimar years, best-selling author Oliver Hilmes shines a spotlight on the extraordinary life and career of this singularly dazzling musical phenomenon. Whereas previous biographies have focused primarily on the composer’s musical contributions, Hilmes showcases Liszt the man in all his many shades and personal reinventions: child prodigy, Romantic eccentric, fervent Catholic, actor, lothario, celebrity, businessman, genius, and extravagant show-off. The author immerses the reader in the intrigues of the nineteenth-century European glitterati (including Liszt’s powerful patrons, the monstrous Wagner clan) while exploring the true, complex face of the artist and the soul of his music. No other Liszt biography in English is as colorful, witty, and compulsively readable, or reveals as much about the true nature of this extraordinary, outrageous talent.
The third concert etude in D-flat major from Liszt's Trois etudes de concert will challenge advanced pianists with its constant hand-crossings and varying number of cascading notes per measure in the accompaniment. A lovely pentatonic melody is embedded in the rolling arpeggio-like patterns, frequently played by alternating hands throughout the piece. Keeping this cantando melodic line distinct and phrased while transparently maintaining the flowing accompaniment is the primary challenge of this masterwork. This edition is based on Musikalische Werke herausgegeben von der Franz Liszt-Stifung, Series II, edited by Ferruccio Busoni.
Liszt's reputation as perhaps the greatest pianist of all time is powerfully supported by his dazzling body of work for solo piano. The undiminished popularity of his etudes with pianists and audiences alike have made them among the most performed and recorded works for solo piano in the romantic repertoire. This superbly produced yet inexpensive two-volume edition presents all of Liszt's etudes as edited by the great pianist, composer, and musical scholar Ferruccio Busoni for the Franz Liszt Society and published by Breitkopf and H�rtel in Leipzig in 1910–11. This first volume, Series I, includes many of Liszt's most inspired piano works. The Etude en 12 Exercises and the 12 Grandes Etudes can both be regarded as early versions of the Etudes d' Ex�cution Transcendante (Transcendental Etudes). Each set is a highly successful work in its own terms, and both generally surpass the famous final version in difficulty. The separate "Mazeppa" is yet another working of one of the etudes from these sets. The individual etudes range dramatically in style from the delicate refinement of "Feux Follets" to the startling bravura of "Wilde Jagd" (both from the Transcendental Etudes). Each will bring to pianists and their listeners a moving encounter with the genius of this towering musical personality.