Piano transcriptions

[gurnemanz]

I've always enjoyed piano transcriptions and have just been listening to a striking four-hand version of Ma Vlast from the Duo Crommelynck on a well put-together Spotify playlist. Not of course a substitute for the original but many work very well. Interesting to see how transposers meet the challenge of recreating the original sound, whether instrumental or vocal, and what freedom they allow themselves to interpret as well as reproduce. You get to hear familiar pieces in a different way, often catching the musical lines in a new and insightful way. I am something of a Lieder fanatic and like many of Liszt's Schubert transcriptions (Leslie Howard on Hyperion). I remember owning an LP of Roger Wodward's Eroica transposition umpteen years ago (still seems to be vinyl only). Liszt's Beethoven Symphony Transcriptions on CD from Cyprien Katsaris are illuminating and brilliantly played.

Do others have favourites (or maybe an aversion to such things)?

[Belgrove]

I attended a memorable recital of Liszt works last year given by Bertrand Chamayou that contained several transcriptions. Chopin's Polish Songs, Frühlingsnacht and Widmung after Schumann, the well known Isolde's Lieberstodt and (new to me) Solemn March to the Holy Grail, extracted from Parsifal. The latter has all the strange tonality of Liszt's late works for piano. I like Busoni's transcriptions of Bach too.

[gradus]

The Liszt song transcriptions are a particular pleasure and I like some more an the originals.

[Richard Tarleton]

I too love Liszt's transcriptions - as well as the complete Leslie Howard Liszt I have Jorge Bolet's delectable recording of the Schubert transcriptions on Decca.

Do you count Liszt's operatic paraphrases? I remember hearing Paul Lewis play the Liszt Lucia di Lammermoor in a recital many years ago. Don Giovanni, Rigoletto.....And one of my absolute favourite recital discs is the 2-CD Jorge Bolet Live at Carnegie Hall in the Great Pianists series, in which he plays the Bach/Busoni Chaconne, Schulz-Evler's Arabesques on the Blue Danube, and Liszt's Tannhauser Overture - what it must have been like to be there that night.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - I really enjoy Liszt's transcriptions (often more so than his original compositions). I remember hearing the Wriggle-a-lotto paraphrase stunningly played by Robert Taub after - of all things - an all-Babbitt programme!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But why, oh why, did Liszt have to make Schubert’s already very difficult Erlking, very close to being impossible?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One I’m less keen on is Mussorgsky’s piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. I much prefer the Ravel original.



Sorry, Ferney

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But why, oh why, did Liszt have to make Schubert’s already very difficult Erlking, very close to being impossible?

Because it was there! (And evidently not "close enough" for Liszt!)

[Pianorak]

But why, oh why, did Liszt have to make Schubert’s already very difficult Erlking, very close to being impossible?

But why, oh why, did Godowsky have to make Chopin's already very difficult Studies, very close to being impossible?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Because it was there! (And evidently not "close enough" for Liszt!)

He was s bit of a show-off,

[ahinton]

One I’m less keen on is Mussorgsky’s piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. I much prefer the Ravel original.

!!!

Actually, I prefer the pre-original one that Elgar Howarth wrote for the Philip Jones where-there's-muck-there's brass ensemble to either...

[ahinton]

But why, oh why, did Godowsky have to make Chopin's already very difficult Studies, very close to being impossible?

I for one am delighted that he did - although I'm not convinced that his masterly and magnificent commentaries on them are more difficult than Chopin's "originals"...

[Edgy 2]

The Liszt song transcriptions are a particular pleasure and I like some more an the originals.

I like ALL of them more than the originals.

I like Alkan’s Mozart transcriptions a lot

https://toccataclassics.com/product/alkan-complete-transcriptions-mozart/

Looking forward to further volumes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One I’m less keen on is Mussorgsky’s piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. I much prefer the Ravel original.



Sorry, Ferney

I've hunted the internet these past few hours trying to find a "sobbing quietly in the corner to myself" emoticon, but cannot find one that works between my computer and the Forum screen. will have to do.

[Bryn]

I've hunted the internet these past few hours trying to find a "sobbing quietly in the corner to myself" emoticon, but cannot find one that works between my computer and the Forum screen. will have to do.

What I find really galling about that Mussorgsky piano transcription is the way he slips in a redundant promenade between SG&M and Limoges: The Market.