In the last third of the twentieth century the search for the “original sound”, which had begun with Baroque music, reached Romanticism by way of the Viennese classics and Schubert. It was the piano transcription of all things, formerly the very symbol of a historically incorrect sound picture, that this development restored to legitimacy; it has since been valued as a witness to the spirit of its time. With transcriptions of a composer’s own works the question of whether arrangement is permissible does not arise at all. Moreover, in Liszt, the composing pianist par excellence, the substance of the poem is reflected far more in the piano writing than in the vocal line; in the transcriptions the voice part disappears entirely, while the piano part is at times considerably expanded.
Most of the songs recorded here were written in 1843/44. Only the Book of Songs for Piano Alone reached a more or less definitive form; Liszt’s compositions remained “works in progress” all his life — of the Faust Symphony alone no fewer than seventeen versions exist. Volume I opens with Die Loreley after Heinrich Heine, here in the more compact second version of 1861. In Am Rhein im schönen Strome, which Robert Schumann had set in his Dichterliebe Op. 48, Liszt renders the flow of the river in continuous semiquavers, whereas Schumann gives more prominence to Cologne Cathedral, also named in Heine’s lines. Mignons Lied after Goethe stands in the extreme key in F sharp major and is covered almost bar by bar with performance markings such as “überspannt”, “quasi arpa” or “con somma passione”; Der König von Thule is of increasingly dramatic cast.
Invocation, the transcription of the Goethe setting “Der du von dem Himmel bist”, demands eminent spans and stands for the piano writing of the 1830s and 1840s which Liszt simplified around 1850; here the extreme pianistic demands are an expression of extreme emotional intensity. Angiolin dal biondo crin after Cesare Bocella goes back to Liszt’s very first song with piano, written in 1839 for his daughter Blandine. In the arrangement the plain strophic song in a rocking 12/8 became a colourful cycle of variations that grows from stanza to stanza before the last returns to the manner of the opening; the first two variations are striking for their continuous quintuplet quavers, a note value practically unknown until then.
Volume II sets poems by Victor Hugo alone, a friend of Liszt. The cycle fell into oblivion because Liszt never completed the revision he had planned; until 1985 it got no further than manuscript, and even the printed edition still contains numerous flaws. Oh! Quand je dors describes the dreams of the enamoured poet about his beloved, Comment, disaient ils a lively dialogue between girls and boys in the rare key in G sharp minor. Enfant, si j’étais roi adopts an at times pompous tone; in S’il est un charmant gazon the vocal line follows a 6/8 pattern while the accompaniment moves in 3/4. In La tombe et la rose the grave and the rose converse in low and high registers, and Gastibelza, headed “Bolero”, evokes folkloric associations through its rhythmic model and scales with an augmented fourth.
Eduard Steingraeber looked after Liszt’s concerts as a piano builder from the 1840s onwards and put on new strings during the intervals. Liszt played the grand piano Steingraeber built in 1873, its case matched to the rococo style of the concert hall in the Steingraeber house in Bayreuth, during his stays in the town, the last time a few days before his death in July 1886. The instrument was thoroughly modern in its day, with a full cast-iron plate, correspondingly strong strings and a repetition action; its silvery sound, rich in overtones, derives from a very stiff soundboard with extremely high ribs. Thomas Hitzlberger studied with Rudolf Buchbinder at the Musikakademie Basel and received there in 1984 the only soloist’s diploma in piano awarded that year; his CD debut with Liszt’s Faust Symphony in the version for two pianos, together with Georg Schütz, attracted international attention. The recording was made from 31 March to 3 April 2000 in the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich-Sendling.