# Ultimate irony



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I just happened onto this -- somebody's complete Liszt symphonic poems ... transcribed for piano. Must be pay back for Liszt transcribing all of Beethoven and who knows who else.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

On my playliszt


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Liszt provided his own piano arrangements of the tone poems, albeit mainly for piano duet/two pianos. I'd be interested to know if Stradal's versions bring anything new to the party.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

After one has mastered all of Liszt's solo piano music, one can turn to this. After all, what's better than _more Liszt_? Especially for those who get bored after mastering all of the solo piano music.


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## 4chamberedklavier (12 mo ago)

How many times can we transcribe back & forth & still keep the music recognizable? This is the true test of Schenkerian analysis


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

larold said:


> I just happened onto this -- somebody's complete Liszt symphonic poems ... transcribed for piano. Must be pay back for Liszt transcribing all of Beethoven and *who knows who else.*


"Sorry we may have to move this thread to a more appropriate forum." - Mods in 2022


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> On my playliszt


😄 If it's not Mozart, I hope it's mozt art! or something Brahms can fall further asleep to.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Don't forget, Liszt also did arrangements of his own music (e.g. the famous Liebestraum was originally a song). Today, only Les Preludes is performed with any frequency, but at some stage some of his other symphonic poems must have been more firmly in the performance repertoire, judging from various transcriptions which where made. Saint-Saens did this splendid transcription for piano trio of Orpheus:


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

The ultimate irony would be someone orchestrating Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

SuperTonic said:


> The ultimate irony would be someone orchestrating Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies.


Don't laugh. When I was taking a graduate course in orchestration teacher did exactly that. We were given a short dance for piano and violin, the composer's name omitted from the copy, and given a week to orchestrate the first 20 bars. The next week the surprise: what we were given was actually a piano reduction of a dance originally written for orchestra and solo violin. Seeing the original composer orchestration next to our own was illuminating to say the least. And the amount of information lost in the piano reduction was key. I think it was one of the Swedish Dances by Max Bruch. In pre-IMSLP days who would know that work? Not even the violinists in the class were able to pick up on it.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"... Mozart subsequently writes his Fugue in C minor for two pianos (KV 426). In Vienna, in June 1788, he decides to re-write it for string quartet, adding an introductory Adagio (KV 546). It was the 20th Century German musicologist, Franz Beyer, who transcribed this Adagio for two pianos, thus completing the circle by returning to base! (The string version is often played as a string quartet, although the bass line divides at one point into "violoncelli" and "contra basso," suggesting that Mozart may have had a larger string ensemble in mind.) The language of this diptych is unbelievable: the harmonic progression is unforeseeable (as is the case in his greatest Fantasies), the rhythmic contrast (the dotted rhythm is in opposition to the suspended ties, played almost without a pulsation), the vehement chromatic tension created by the counterpoint …….. All of these elements contribute to making this work a ‘tour de force’ - applied as it is, to a musical form from the ‘old’ school (which the era of ‘Sensitive Style’ disliked so much ) at the same time as projecting itself, by ambition, into the language of the Romantic Era (Beethoven’s Great Fugue op. 133 is not far away…..). ..." 
-Emmanuel Hondré​


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