The “Games” cycle, created for piano from 1973 onwards, was originally conceived as a piano school, in the first volumes of which Kurtág introduced children to the basic elements of piano playing and musical thinking, and, perhaps even more importantly, of informal music-making. Over the past decades, however, the cycle lost its didactic character and became more of a document about Kurtág’s composer’s workshop, which also gives us a key to his large-format symphonic, chamber and vocal works. This change is indicated by the fact that from the fifth issue onwards the “Games” cycle has the subtitle “Diary notes, personal messages”.
The often aphoristically short sentences contain rich associations relating to numerous phenomena in European music history, and for the most part they are homage or in memoriam sentences or personal, very subjective messages to friends, colleagues, loved ones and students – and about them to all music-loving people.
perpetuum mobile prelude + waltz in c
Hitting with your palms is permitted
flowers the people flowers the people
tap flowers also the stars
funnel game
with the forearms homage to Verdi
strolling around the c toene night song
small chorale
tripping, staggering
carrying, swaying, dawdling
homage to bartok
let’s fool around
lost sounds
silent talking palms homage to mariassy istvan
harmonize slowly changing
the bunny and the fox legato
Waltz clapping hand game
The stone frog slowly went flowers to the people
fifths
pleasant moments of the young fist fighter
portrait
sleepy
5 small piano pieces play with three fingers
gallop
cocky csardas
tug pull
tone and cluster of melancholy overtones
small chorale
flowers the people
clay and clay grape sarabande
funnel game
scherzando homage to Beethoven
Fifths fourths palm play with overtones
knots almost in my sleep
hidden scale flowers the people
melody with twists sparrow noise
bicker mikrorondo
mime
homage to ligeti blows
palms in side movements
Homage to Tchaikovsky
homage to eoetvoes
homage to Paganini
preliminary studies on the hoquetus
perpetual motion and once again flowers the people

You can find all pieces and excercises of the Piano ABC on this recording. The CD contains only the Primo part of the four-handed pieces.

This third volume of free arrangements contains three sets of pieces. The Hexameron variations were written by Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, Herz, Czerny, and Chopin, on a theme by Bellini, and Liszt combined this unusual collection into a single work. The Soirées musicales de Rossini contains 12 pieces, and Schuberts ungarische Melodien has three. In addition, the volume features the transcription for piano of the Schubert male-voice choir piece Der Gondelfahrer, while the appendix contains the original version of Schuberts ungarische Melodien, the Mélodies hongroises. The hard clothbound copies are published as part of the New Liszt Edition, and the grey soft paper bound copies as part of the Liszt: Klavierwerke series. In both versions, excerpts from the manuscript sources precede the musical score. The prefaces to the series and to each individual volume in German and English are the same in both versions. The English critical notes are only given in the clothbound copies.

1. ‘La cloche sonne’
2. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 1. (A flat major – As-Dur)
3. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 2. (A flat major – As-Dur)
4. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 3. (E major – E-Dur)
5. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 4. (D flat major – Des-Dur)
6. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 5. (G flat major – Ges-Dur)
7. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 6. (A minor – a-Moll)
8. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 7. (A major – A-Dur)
9. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 8. (D major – D-Dur)
10. Soirées de Vienne. Valses-caprices d’apres Francois Schubert 9. (A flat major – As-Dur)
11. Zwei Stücke aus R. Wagners Tannhäuser und Lohengrin. Einzug der Gäste auf Wartburg. March (Tannhäuser)
12. Zwei Stücke aus R. Wagners Tannhäuser und Lohengrin. Einzug der Gäste auf Wartburg. March (Tannhäuser)
13. Zwei Stücke aus R. Wagners Tannhäuser und Lohengrin. Einzug der Gäste auf Wartburg.Elsas Brautgang zum Münster-Lohengrin
14.Bénédiction et Serment. Deux motifs de Benvenuto Cellini de Berlioz
15.Andante Finale und Marsch aus der Oper: König Alfred von Joachim Raff – Andante Finale
16.Andante Finale und Marsch aus der Oper: König Alfred von Joachim Raff – Marsch
17.Ungarischer Romanzero 2. (A minor – a-Moll)
18.Ungarischer Romanzero 3. (Allegretto)
19.Ungarischer Romanzero 5.  (D minor – d-Moll)
20.Ungarischer Romanzero 6. (Primatialis nóta)
21.Ungarischer Romanzero 7. (A major – A-Dur)
22.Ungarischer Romanzero 8. (D minor – d-Moll)
23.Ungarischer Romanzero 9. (A major – A-Dur)
24.Ungarischer Romanzero 10. (G minor – g-Moll)
25.Ungarischer Romanzero 11. (Makói csárdás)
26.Aus Richard Wagners Lohengrin 1. Festspiel und Brautlied Choeur des fiancailles
27.Aus Richard Wagners Lohengrin 2. Elsas Traum – Reve d’Elsa
28.Aus Richard Wagners Lohengrin 3. Lohengrins Verweis an Elsa – Romance

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.

Volumes I/13-14 of the New Liszt Edition contain dance pieces, marches, and scherzos. As far as possible, in the volumes the pieces are given in chronological order. The works in volume 14 were composed over a period spanning 35 years, with the earliest written in 1849, and the latest in 1885. Liszt wrote the Ungarischer Geschwindmarsch (Hungarian quick march) in 1870 in Szekszárd, where, with minor breaks, he spent the months from August to November. In the footnotes, as well as editorial comments we give the performance indications that August Göllerich noted down in 1884-86, when he took piano lessons from the composer.
Pages: 160
Language: English / German
Publisher: Editio Musica Budapest

1. Angelus! 
2. Aux Cypres de la Villa d´Este, Thrénodie (I) 
3. Aux Cypres de la Villa d´Este, Thrénodie (II) 
4. Les jeux d´eauxa la Villa d´Este
5. Sunt lacrymae rerum 
6. Marche funebre 
7. Sursum corda