Editio Musica Budapest

The history of Liszt’s intensely virtuosic and unwaveringly popular Transcendental Etudes dates back to his 12 Etudes composed around 1826. Liszt later reworked 11 pieces of this not-so-technically-difficult series into virtuoso concert etudes, and replaced one of the etudes with a new piece. This version was published in 1837 under the name Grandes études. However, Liszt reworked these 12 big etudes again: the final version of the series – in which, with two exceptions, the pieces were titled – was published in 1851 under the series title Études d exécution transcendante. Transcendental Etudes was the very first volume of the New Liszt Complete Critical Edition, first published in 1970 based on the previous editions of the work. This edition includes footnotes highlighting common performance difficulties and English and German forewords, facsimiles, and critical notes in English.

Series I of the complete edition, launched in 1970 (original piano works for two hands, volumes 1-18), was completed in 1985, and with the publication of this volume of series II (transcriptions of works by other composers, volumes 1-24) comes to anend. The works contained in this volume are from Liszt’s so-called ‘late’ period: the Finale de Don Carlos written in 1867 and Aida written in 1878, again based on a Verdi opera, and a further fifteen transcriptions written between these two junctures. Of these, Am stillen Herd, the Ballade, and Walhall are based on themes by Wagner. A Hungarian thread runs through Szép Ilonka (by Mihály Mosonyi), the Introduction and Hungarian March (Count Imre Széchényi), and the 5 Hungarian Folk Songs. Transcriptions of La Marseillaise (Rouget de Lisle), one song each by Gizycka-Zamoyska, Schumann, Bülow, and Spohr, two by Lassen, and finally dance pieces by Herbeck and Pezzini represent Liszt’s artistic output of arrangements from this period. The appendix gives the early version of one of the Lassen transcriptions, Löse Himmel mein Seele. Two versions of the edition are published, as is customary in a blue hard clothbound volume and in a soft paper bound volume. The preface, setting out the most important aspects of technique and substance, is identical in both versions, while the description of the sources and the critical commentary is in only the former version. At the beginning of both versions of the volume are reproductions of pages of Liszt’s original manuscripts; more than being simply illustrations, these permit a deeper insight into excerpts of the works given.