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Franz Liszt's Transcendental Etudes
Many of the criticisms of Liszt stick, but you can't judge these pieces by the standards of a Bach fugue. If there's anything in classical music that comes close to the ecstasy of The Clash, or the beauty of Brian Eno, it is these works. The Etudes are also nearly impossible to play and as monomaniacal works they try to contain everything pianistic. A new version of the Etudes has appeared, by Miroslav Kultyshev. It starts slow but by Mazeppa (YouTube here) the listener takes notice. There are many bad or unlistenable versions of the Etudes but the recordings by Freddy Kempf (download here), Kemal Gekic,(YouTube here) and Vladimir Ovchinikov are of note. Nikolai Lugansky (YouTube only) is good with the dynamics. It is somehow appropriate that none of these talented pianists has met with major success more generally, as if other music is somehow "too little" for them. Or they sold their souls to the devil to play the Etudes and they are, underneath the surface, shattered empty men.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 21, 2009 at 09:16 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Tyler...the claim that "It is somehow appropriate that none of these talented pianists has met with major success more generally" isn't really appropriate, especially with respect to Nikolai Lugansky, who is not even noted for his Liszt playing - he's most known as a wonderful interpreter of Rachmaninoff and player of chamber music. In addition, Lazar Berman, Boris Berezovsky, Claudio Arrau, Janina Fialkowska, Gyorgy Cziffra and many others have put to disc great complete recordings of the transcendental etudes. There are dozens of others 'comprehensive pianists' with extensive repertoires who have given thrilling accounts of certain etudes...Richter (Feux Follets, Harmonies du Soir), Ashkenazi (Feux Follets), Busoni (Feux Follets), Petri (Mazeppa)...and btw, these works are by no means "almost impossible to play"; they're difficult - especially Feux Follets...but not really near the difficulty of Godowsky, tougher Alkan, Bartok etudes etc.
Posted by: Jacob at Sep 21, 2009 9:32:54 PM
Of the sets you mention I like only the Berman and even that I think is out of date..the Berezovsky I haven't heard. Cziffra and Arrau are among the worst versions, for my taste, even though both are important pianists.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Sep 21, 2009 9:56:12 PM
I echo Jacob that Godowsky holds the championship belt in absurd difficulty. I also think that Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 is his most profound work, and that in general Chopin's etudes remain the gold standard in etudes. And I'll even go so far as to suggest that Liszt's greatest contribution to music was not his own work, but his role in exposing the then-obscure work of Franz Schubert.
Posted by: William at Sep 21, 2009 10:08:28 PM
if you must listen to the hungarian rhapsody, listen to this performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XuEUWQCJSA
Posted by: babar at Sep 21, 2009 10:16:49 PM
The real pity about Lizst is that we will never be able to watch him play. I once read that during recitals that he would often have a young lady rise from the audience and "faint" at the power of his play just as he was finishing a dazzling and difficult piece and that he could catch her with one arm while finishing the piece with a single hand. The story is probably apocryphal, but much of his composition always leaves me thinking of profound showmanship.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Sep 21, 2009 10:17:43 PM
It is somehow appropriate that none of these talented pianists has met with major success more generally, as if other music is somehow "too little" for them. Or they sold their souls to the devil to play the Etudes and they are, underneath the surface, shattered empty men.
Oh, for goodness' sake, Tyler. This is romantic silliness. A much more parsimonious explanation is that the pieces aren't as difficult to play as you make them out to be, and that none of these pianists (even if they have the chops to play these etudes) really has the complete musicianship to make a splash in the wider musical world.
Posted by: Grouchy Musicologist at Sep 21, 2009 10:18:29 PM
@Tyler:
Arrau's set is among the worst? Hmm...Interesting! Keep in mind Arrau studied under Krause (a pupil of Liszt), won the Liszt prize in 1919, and put to disc some of the most fabulous Liszt recordings in history (1928, Spanish Rhapsody, Hungarian rhapsodies, concerti etc. from the 50s)...in any event, I think you`re grossly underrating one of the greatest Lizst interpreters of all time. I agree that his Philips transcendental set, recorded when he was already in his 70s, has quite a weak Feux Follets...but I strongly urge you to re-listen to his technically jaw-dropping Wilde Jagd, his church-organ like octaves and amazing slow-section in Mazeppa, and his incomprably poetic renditions of Harmonies du Soir and Chasse Neige...(maybe only Louis Kenter engenders more light in Harmonies du Soir). PS...Berman actually recorded two complete sets of the Transcendental Etudes. The best one, in my view, is the 1958 Melodiya set, which I reckon has the most exciting accounts of nos 2, and 8 ever put to disc.
Posted by: Jacob at Sep 21, 2009 11:00:05 PM
Ricordanza is the only one of the etudes that recalls the Liszt who was an abbot, and this is the Liszt I personally find interesting. Though a paid-up member of the Dennett-Dawkins tendency, I think one can't ignore the existence of religious feeling - even if it is wrong to deduce any alleged facts from this feeling. Liszt's Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude expresses this feeling very intensely, and so do his Consolations. However, the Lamartine poem that inspired the Benediction is frankly awful.
I suppose the reasons for Liszt's transcriptions were economic - it was hard for people to hear symphonies or operas - but the second movement of Beethoven 7 goes well on the piano, and the transcription of Bella Figlia dell'Amore from Rigoletto is wonderful. I suspect the woman who fainted had been listening to the transcription of the Liebestod - that was the Liszt that knew how women feel.
Posted by: Charles Young at Sep 22, 2009 1:35:20 AM
Berezovsky is fantastic, I think. There is a live recording of him playing the whole cycle in La Roque d'Anthéron (have a look here and here, I think the full concert is online) that is full of power and his technique is amazing. If you like, him you might also want to look for him playing Prokofiev piano concerto and Godowski (this is the stuff where you will probably not find anyone saying "common, it is not THAT difficult").
Of course, if you want an entirely different kind of "difficult" this might be for you.
Posted by: David at Sep 22, 2009 4:58:07 AM
As someone who plays these etudes and has a screen name of LisztDisciple over at PianoWorld, I will give my (I hope) not too over-sensitive take. The Transcendental Etudes are both overrated and underrated. In terms of difficulty, with the exception of number 5 (Feux Follets), and, at least for me, number 2, they are not really that difficult. In that, they are overrated, although playing Feux Follets well is a major challenge (took me years to learn it, as opposed to, say, the Chopin double third etude, which I learned in only 3 days back when I was younger). On the other hand, and reacting a bit perhaps to Tyler's comments, the music in them is underrated. In particular, the music found in Feux Follets, Ricordanza, No. 10, and Chasse-neige is first rate. In the bigger picture, the criticisms of Liszt's works are related to the uneven quality of what he wrote. Some of his compositions are indeed just sound and bombast, but others are as good as it gets in the piano world (b minor Sonata, Dante Sonata, ...), and his role as an innovator and champion for others cannot be underestimated.
As an aside, Freddy Kempf has done some remarkable recordings ... I would differ strongly with Tyler's comments about "It is somehow appropriate that none of these talented pianists has met with major success more generally ..." Sometimes who "makes it" or not in the musical world is whimsical and not really that related to playing and/or interpretive ability (or is it who wins the competitions??). For example, Kempf's Prokofiev recording, especially of Sonata No. 6 and the Toccata, and staggering. Maybe he "sold his soul" to play the Toccata as he does ... his performance of it vastly trumps that of Agerich (or Horowitz... who misses a gazillion notes) ... not a statement I am used to making.
Posted by: Greg Lehmiller at Sep 22, 2009 7:40:57 AM
No mention of Kissin?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtiQtzDqdaI
Posted by: Robert Arbon at Sep 22, 2009 7:47:42 AM
Dear Cowen-and-clan,
Thanks chaps - very instructive.
Posted by: dearieme at Sep 22, 2009 9:25:19 AM
Good grief, Tyler, these etudes aren't that hard. I played one when I was twelve (with the depth of a twelve-year-old, of course, but technically error-free). And there are plenty of Chinese and Korean children who, forced by their parents to practice 6+ hours a day, can whip them out provided their hands are just big enough.
As someone who's played a great deal of Liszt in their day, his music reminds me the most of Queen. In general, not terribly deep, but a great deal of fun.
Posted by: retired pianist at Sep 22, 2009 9:33:43 AM
What's hard is to play them *well*!
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Sep 22, 2009 9:36:08 AM
Comparison of Liszt to the Clash and Eno are pretty sad. Corny at best would be the right word. Sad?
Posted by: johnson at Sep 22, 2009 11:50:32 AM
Yep, these are easy. I was playing them perfectly when I was 4 months old.
Posted by: Chinese Pianist at Sep 22, 2009 12:02:19 PM
Kissin's Moscow performance of La Campanella, also by Liszt (and Paganini), is also pretty amazing.
Like the Transcendentals, La Campanella is rarely performed well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpnM1ahqzdw
Posted by: Tuttle at Sep 22, 2009 12:07:28 PM
If you're THAT impressed, I'll definitely have a listen. Don't have much to say, just wanted to experiment posting with a different name.
Posted by: Twelve-inch Pianist at Sep 22, 2009 12:09:38 PM
I have read your blog fairly often, but was much taken aback by your rating of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes(and the Clash and Eno) as superior to all other classical music with respect to "ecstasy" and "beauty". I think I am not alone in finding a great deal of classical music superior to these Etudes as far as those two categories are in question. In fact, I think most people who like and know a little about classical music would hold some other pieces by Liszt himself superior to those etudes in all respects except technical difficulty. If, as it appears, you are so far off base on an important matter like classical music, how can you be trusted about less significant matters such as economics and politics?
Posted by: lwhayes at Sep 22, 2009 12:27:16 PM
I agree with Greg Lehmiller that at least the Dante Sonata is their superior.
I also agree with others that bringing up The Clash and Eno here is absurd,
except possibly for the showmanship angle (and there are certainly grander
showmen in pop music than Eno).
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 22, 2009 1:26:03 PM
Tyler:
"Of the sets you mention I like only the Berman and even that I think is out of date"
I think I know what you are trying to say, but this is a crude way of expressing your aesthetic preferences and assumes an historical progress to musicianship which is ridiculous to my way of thinking. Perhaps if Liszt had recorded his own version it would be out of date as well! Or perhaps the pieces themselves are out of date?
Posted by: ed at Sep 22, 2009 1:49:26 PM
Kissin playing no. 5 live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9BsyS3XSYw
Posted by: jack0fspeed at Sep 22, 2009 9:08:59 PM
"ecstasy of The Clash"? I saw the Clash play, fantastic yes, maybe the concert I've best enjoyed, but I'm not sure ecstasy is a term I'd use.
Posted by: Peter at Sep 22, 2009 11:13:00 PM
Perhaps it wasn't only the TERM that was used?
Posted by: Jens Fiederer at Sep 23, 2009 10:18:30 AM
"anything in classical music that comes close to ... the beauty of Brian Eno"?
Good heavens! The whole corpus of classical music (with the exception of Liszt) lags behind Brian Eno? Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Verdi, Stravinsky?
'tis a dismal science indeed.
Posted by: Charles Salmon at Sep 23, 2009 2:31:51 PM
