EARL WILD LISZT THE 1985 SESSIONS

DISC 1 From “Années de Pèlerinage” Second Year: Italy (S161/R10b) 1 Après une lecture du Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata) 15:58 [“Dante Sonata”] (Andante maestoso - Presto agitato assai - Tempo I (Andante) - Andante (quasi improvvisato) - Andante - Recitativo - Adagio - Allegro moderato - Più mosso - Tempo rubato e molto ritenuto - Andante - Più mosso - Allegro - Allegro vivace - Presto - Andante (Tempo I)) 2 Sonetto 47 del Petrarca 6:20 (Preludio con moto - Sempre mosso con intimo sentimento) 3 Sonetto 104 del Petrarca 6:31 (Agitato assai - Adagio - Agitato) 4 Sonetto 123 del Petrarca 7:04 (Lento placido - Sempre lento - Più lento - (Tempo iniziale)) From “Années de Pèlerinage” Third Year (S163/R10e) 5 Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este 7:41 (Fountains of the Villa d’Este) (Allegretto) 6 Ballade No.2 in B minor (S171/R16) 13:59 (Allegro moderato - Lento assai - Tempo I - Lento assai - Allegretto - Allegro deciso - Allegretto - Allegretto sempre legato - Allegro moderato - Un poco più mosso - Andantino) From “Liebesträume, 3 Notturnos” (S541/R211) 7 Liebesträume (Notturno) No.2 in E flat Major (2nd Version) 4:27 (“Seliger Tod”) (Quasi lento, abbandonandosi) 8 Liebesträume (Notturno) No.3 in A flat Major 4:26 (“O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!”) (Poco allegro, con affetto) 9 Concert Étude No.3 in D flat Major (“Un Sospiro”) (S144/R5) 5:14 (Allegro affettuoso) Total Playing Time : 72:16

– 2 – DISC 2 Bach/Liszt: Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (S463/R120) 11:12 1 Fantasia (Grave) 5:49 2 Fugue (Allegro) 5:23 Sonata in B minor (S178/R21) 28:27 3 Lento assai - Allegro energico - Grandioso - Recitative - Andante sostenuto - Quasi Adagio 18:35 4 Fugue: Allegro energico - Più mosso - Stretta quasi Presto - Presto - Prestissimo - 9:50 Andante sostenuto - Allegro moderato - Lento assai 5 Die Loreley (Second Version (S532/R209)) 6:31 (Nicht schleppend) From “Harmonies poétiques et religieuses” (S173/R14) 6 Funérailles 12:29 (Introduzione (Adagio) - Lagrimoso - Poco a poco più moto - Allegro energico assai - Più lento) From “Six Chants Polonais” (S480/R145) from Seventeen Polish Songs, Opus 74 7 Chopin/Liszt: My Joys (“Moja pieszczotka” (Nocturne)) 4:21 (Quasi allegretto) 8 Mephisto Polka (S217/R39) 4:03 (Allegretto) 9 Consolation No.3 in D flat Major (S172/R12) 4:32 (Lento placido) Total Playing Time: 72:03

– 3 – Franz Liszt

– 4 – FRANZ LISZT

“In Franz Liszt we have not only the most important figure among pianists in the nineteenth century, but a universal genius, who summed up in himself the whole development of piano play- ing since the invention of the instrument.” – Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960), American composer and teacher.

Franz Liszt’s influence on the 19th century was overwhelming and through his numerous stu- dents, his strong musical presence influenced piano playing into the 20th century. He developed piano playing not only through his own compositions, but also through his teaching. His compo- sitions influenced many other composers. Additionally, Liszt helped promote the works of many composers during his years as a touring virtuoso. Later, in his position as head of the Weimar orchestra and opera house, he was an important influence on contemporary tastes, tirelessly pro- moting the works of his contemporaries. In his later years, Liszt did his best to promote the works of the newer Russian school of composers, including Borodin and Mussorgsky. Numerous other composers – Grieg, Smetana, Glazunov, and of course, Wagner, have copiously written about the value they placed on Liszt’s moral encouragement as an important aid in their careers. As one of Liszt’s most illustrious students, Moritz Rosenthal (1862-1946) once wrote, “When one was with Liszt, one felt the power of his overwhelming personality...” Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a grateful subject for biographers, factual and fictional. He pos- sessed every feature of a romantic personage, as we of the 21st century are apt to portray the great personalities of the 19th century. He had a brilliant beginning as a child prodigy; he was kissed on his brow by Beethoven and studied with Beethoven’s greatest student, Carl Czerny; as a youth he was the prince of pianists and the leading artistic figure in European capitals at the time when Europeans were, according to our dearest beliefs, joyous and preoccupied with glamor rather than work or war; he wore flowing hair and had a wild appearance about him; he loved women, and women loved him; and in his middle age, became an Abbé, as some sinners do in romantic novels. Liszt wrote music with expressive and meaningful titles, often with a poem for an epigraph; and he was unquestionably, with Wagner, the co-author of the “music of the future,” so designated by the despairing contemporaries for its quality of hugeness of design and grandiloquence of idiom. As a pianist, Liszt was unique (in the correct use of the word). According to Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), “Liszt possesses a degree of velocity and complete independence of finger, and a thoroughly musical feeling, which cannot be equalled. In a word, I have heard no performer whose – 5 – musical perceptions extend to the very tips of his fingers and emanate directly from them as Liszt’s do.” What he was able to do as a pianist-interpreter, Liszt was able to do even better as a com- poser. The hundreds of scores he wrote illustrated an astonishing command of the keyboard and an even more extraor- dinary musical mind. Not only did Liszt compose numerous original works, but he was throughout his life continually compelled to transcribe his own and other composers’ music for the piano. How Liszt managed to find the time to accomplish all this can only be explained by an acceptance that a genius works in mysterious ways. Liszt’s Après une lecture du Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata), which is often simply entitled “Dante Sonata,” is the final work in the second book (Italy) of his Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”). According to Liszt biogra- Earl Wild with Lord Londonderry at the Londonderry Family Estate, 1986 pher and cataloguer, Humphrey Searle, “The Dante Sonata [Disc 1, 1 ] has no programme as such, but in it Liszt clearly expressed his reactions to the “strange tongues, horrible cries, words of pain, tones of anger” which Dante described in his Inferno.” Liszt first sketched his Après une lecture du Dante (“After reading Dante”) in 1839, completing the work some ten years later. The “reading” refers to Victor Hugo’s poems inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” So impressed with Dante’s writings was Liszt, that he wrote to Hector Berlioz: “Dante will perhaps one day find musical expression in the Beethoven of the future.” Ingeniously based on three basic ideas, the Dante Sonata begins with jar- ring, descending-octave tritones (known as diabolus in musica). Later on, we hear these tritones in less-dissonant intervals as Liszt introduces the “Paradiso” tremolos. The second basic idea heard in the work is a grim, chromatic descending figure played in groups of two repeated octaves in the

– 6 – right hand that alternate with dark-colored chords in the left hand. For the final basic idea, Liszt abandons the stormy D minor in favor of F-sharp major, counterbalancing, so-to-speak, Hell with the love that is evoked. The rising figures bring us to the end and “Paradiso.” Liszt’s Three Petrarch Sonnets (S161/R10b) began life as songs composed in 1838-9 before their magical transcription into ardent piano pieces in 1858 and inclusion in the second book (Italy) of his Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”). Based on Francesco Petrarca’s (1304-1374) emo- tional sonnet “Pace non trovo” [I find no peace] the Sonetto 47 del Petrarca [Disc 1, 2 ] is a tri- umph of Romantic contrasts (peace and war, hate and love, grief and laughter, and death and life). The Sonetto 104 del Petrarca [Disc 1, 3 ] is based on the sonnet “Benedetto sia ‘l giorno” [Blessed be the day], an ardent lyric written by Petrarch to his beloved Laura five-hundred years before Liszt’s time. The Sonetto 123 del Petrarca [Disc 1, 4 ] is based on the sonnet “I vidi in terra angelici costumi” [I beheld on earth angelic grace]. In this piece we hear Liszt and his impressions of Italy, Liszt and his love, and most of all Liszt and his pianism – emotional music with genuine poetic feeling. The years 1839-1847 are generally recognized as Liszt’s “period of transcendental execution,” during which time he gave well over a thousand concerts throughout most of Western Europe, Turkey, Poland and Russia. The First Year: (Suisse) of the three collections entitled “Années de Pelerinage” (Years of Pilgrimage) was begun in 1848 (the year following this highly active period), as the first flowerings of a more introspective approach to composition, moving gradually away from the wristbreaking pyrotechnics of previous compositions. The Second Year: (Italie) was com- pleted in 1858. Between 1867 and 1877 he completed his third set in the series, a more austere and impressionistic group of pieces, reflective of the mature musician. The third group was published in 1883 and four of the seven pieces are music of mourning or lamentation. Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (Fountains of the Villa d’Este) [Disc 1, 5 ] is an impressionistic rendering of the fountains amidst gloomy cypresses as seen from Liszt’s quarters at the Villa d’Este. Liszt pref- aced the music with a fragment from the Gospel of St. John: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him...” The Ballade No.2 in B minor (S171/R16) [Disc 1, 6 ] was composed in 1853. It is a strug- gle of opposites (much like the Sonetto 104 del Petrarca is a triumph of contrasts) – good and evil, the masculine and the feminine, the spiritual and the worldly. In his famous book on Liszt, Sacheverell Sitwell describes this work as being “concerned as it were less with personal suffering than with great happenings on the epical scale, barbarian invasions, cities in flames – tragedies of public, more than private import.” The three Liebesträume, are impassioned love songs without words. Yet, they began their existence as songs with words. Liszt published them in 1850 with the title Drei Lieder für eine

– 7 – Tenor – oder Sopranstimme. The first two songs were settings of poems by Ludwig Uhland (1787- 1862) and the third, to a poem by Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-1876). Liszt provides the complete texts of the Uhland poems and the first four verses of the Freiligrath’s poem before the piano pieces. Liszt called his Liebesträume nocturnes (“Notturni” ), music full of warm evening colors. Liebesträume No.2 in E Flat Major [Disc 1, 7 ] is a setting of Uhland’s Seliger Tod (“Blissful Death”):

Gestorben war ich I died Vor Liebeswonne; Of love’s bliss; Begraben lag ich I lay buried In ihren Armen; In her arms; Erwecket ward ich I was awakened Von ihren Küssen; By her kisses; Den Himmel sah ich I saw heaven In ihren Augen. In her eyes.

A work of wonderful beauty and exquisite use of light and shadow, it paints a musical picture of an exalted love and happiness in death, awakened by a kiss. Liebesträume No.3 in A Flat Major [Disc 1, 8 ] is the most celebrated of the three works. It is a setting of Freiligrath’s romantic poem O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! (“O love, as long as you can love”):

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! Oh love, as long as you can love! O lieb, so lang du lieben magst! Oh love, as long as you may love! Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt, The hour will come, the hour will come Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst When you stand by their graves and mourn.

Und sorge, daß dein Herze glüht Be sure that your heart with ardour glows, Und Liebe hegt und Liebe trägt, Is full of love and cherishes love, So lang ihm noch ein ander Herz As long as one other heart In Liebe warm entgegen schlägt. Beats with yours in tender love.

Und wer dir seine Brust erschließt, If anyone opens his heart to you, O tu ihm, was du kannst, zu lieb! Show him kindness whenever you can! Und mach ihm jede Stunde froh, And make his every hour happy Und mach ihm keine Stunde trüb. And never give him one hour of sadness.

– 8 – Und hüte deine Zunge wohl! And guard well your tongue! Bald ist ein hartes Wort entflohn. A cruel word is quickly said. O gott, es war nicht bös gemeint; Oh God, it was not meant to hurt; Fer Andre aber geht und weint. But the other one departs in grief.

Twice in the course of this impassioned work the melody is interrupted by a brief interlude between the verses, as it would seem, giving us a fleeting glimpse of the summer night with its subtle perfumes and vague whisperings. The work closes with a passage of soft, sweet, restful harmonies, a sigh of content in the final fruition of love’s dream. Concert Étude No.3 in D-flat Major (S144/R5) [Disc 1, 9 ] is subtitled Un sospiro (“A Sigh”). Published around 1848 as part of a set of three Études de Concert, Un Sospiro, quickly became the most often performed of the set. This mood piece is beautifully melodious and flowing, containing some difficult cross-hand passages. One contemporary critic described it as a “ripple of sweet sadness that seems as if it might roll on long after it has passed by.” Stories about Franz Liszt’s keyboard wizardry have been so numerous, and frequently of such an unbelievable nature, that it is always interesting to note what his contemporaries thought of his playing. English pianist Oscar Beringer (1844-1922) heard Liszt in 1870 and set down his impres- sions: “Words cannot describe him as a pianist; he was incomparable and unapproachable. I have seen whole rows of his audience, men and women alike, affected to tears, when he chose to be pathetic; in stormy passages he was able by his art to work them up to the highest pitch of excite- ment. Through the medium of his instrument he played upon every human emotion.” In musical circles respects are paid to Liszt’s contributions as a composer, along with Wagner, of “the music of the future” (in opposition to more conservative currents in composition represented by Brahms), and to his far-reaching explorations of the capabilities of the piano. Many people, daz- zled by his flamboyant public career as a piano virtuoso, found his other interests in composition, religion, and conducting somewhat superficial and tainted by the same flamboyance. Whether this judgement was correct or not, Liszt had an extraordinary range of activity throughout his life, and, as a result, is widely regarded as symbolic of Romanticism. His many interests, even as a young man, are evident in quotation from a letter to his friend, Pierre Wolff: “My mind and my fingers are working like two lost spirits: the Bible, Locke, Plato, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber, are all around me. I study them, meditate on them, devour them avidly. Beside this I practice the piano 4 to 5 hours...” Liszt studied Bach, in fact knew most of Bach’s keyboard works by heart by the time he was six- teen. Liszt also learned how to play the organ and became almost as proficient and virtuosic on the organ as on the piano. He composed eleven organ works during his life time, including the

– 9 – monumental Prelude and Fugue on the name B-A-C-H (1852). In addition to this original work, Liszt also transcribed six preludes and fugues by Bach and the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV542) (S463/ R120) [Disc 2, 1 & 2 ]. Liszt published the first version of the piano tran- scription in 1863 in the celebrated Lebert and Stark “Method for the Piano- forte.” He edited the final revised edition in 1872. Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, a work that has been called “one of the mightiest peaks in the literature of the piano,” is a composition Earl Wild contemplating Liszt scores with the master looking over his shoulder, 1986 which takes us on a dizzying journey of images and emo- tions. Writing to Liszt, Richard Wagner found the Sonata to be “beyond all conception beautiful; great, lovely; deep and noble – sublime, even as yourself.” The Sonata was written by Liszt during his so-called “Weimar Period” (1848-1861). In 1849 Liszt settled at Weimar, and became director of the court theater there. He abandoned the career of a virtuoso to accept this position, and did so in order that he might be in a position to promote the works of other composers. On Wednesday, February 2, 1853, Liszt completed his most ambitious (and now most often performed) work, the Sonata in B minor, dedicating it to Robert Schumann, who many years earlier had dedicated to Liszt his own finest work for the instrument, the Fantasy in C, Opus 17. The first public performance of the Sonata took place on January 22, 1857 in Berlin at a concert inaugurating the first Bechstein grand piano. Hans von Bülow, who gave that first performance wrote to Liszt of “an unexpected, almost unanimous success.”

– 10 – One critic called the Sonata in B minor, “Liszt’s boldest experiment in original music for the piano alone.” Why call it “an experiment”? Perhaps, because the piece is not, in the conventional sense, a sonata. It is in one contiguous movement; its themes are not formally treated in the sonata- manner. It is, in effect, a symphonic tone poem, reduced in scale to the measure of the piano’s resources. Yet within its single movement one can discover the elements of the sonata. All the lead- ing characteristics of the form are fully maintained within the scope of the single movement, and as one analyst pointed out, “Liszt’s Sonata constitutes a more complete organism than can be attained by three distinct and independent movements.” Rafael Joseffy (1852-1915), Liszt student, editor of Chopin’s works, and professor of piano at the National Conservatory in New York, stated that the Sonata, “is one of those compositions that plays itself, it lies so beautifully for the hand.” There is no doubt that the work is full of astonish- ing theme transformations. The drama, the panache, the sensuousness and rhetoric abound in a manner that only Liszt could “pack” into a composition. But it hardly plays itself! The Sonata is vir- tuoso music at its best – a work that requires careful study and prodigious technique. The Sonata in B minor [Disc 2, 3 & 4 ] opens in a portentous atmosphere with a motif which is encountered later on. From the gloom springs a broad theme in octaves which is said to have inspired Wagner’s leitmotif for Wotan. This heavy descending scale passage is followed by a truly Lisztian theme of descending and ascending octave passages leading to a third subject with a drum-like accompaniment. The work is developed from these three themes. Konrad Wolff com- pared the development and structure of the Sonata with life itself, “with all its highlights and crises, its moments of repose and detachment, its emotional and spiritual involvements, ending in death and (during the final measures) transfiguration.” Perhaps, Liszt had in mind German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s generally accepted statement that the “Idea” itself creates its con- trast or, in Hegel’s words, “unfolds itself in the form of being different.” It is certainly a useful way of examining the Sonata. There is no division into separate movements, yet the sections are clearly defined. A grand theme of broad chorale-like character forms the Andante sostenuto. It is developed (transformed) with the three introductory motifs, leading without pause into the Allegro energico which builds up into a grandiose finale. For the famous critic and Liszt enthusiast, James Huneker, the Sonata was Liszt’s most interesting work for the piano. He exclaimed, “What a tremendously dramatic work it is! It stirs the blood. It is intense. It is complex. The opening bars are truly Lisztian... Power there is, sardonic power... Is there a composer who paints the infernal, the macabre, with more suggestive realism than Liszt? The chorale, usually the meat of a Liszt compo- sition, now appears and proclaims the religious belief of the composer in dogmatic accents, and our convictions are swept along until after that outburst in C major... But the rustle of silken attire is in back of every bar; sensuous imagery, a faint perfume of femininity lurks in every cadence and

– 11 – trill... All this leads to a prestissimo finale of startling splendor. There is nothing more exciting in the litera- ture of the piano. It is bril- liantly captivating, and Liszt the Magnificent is stamped on every bar!” Franz Liszt was born a Roman Catholic and all his life maintained that he was a true believer. In a letter writ- ten to Joseph d’Ortigue (1802-1866), a scholar spe- cializing in the history and praxis of the Catholic chorals, Liszt wrote, “In the depth of my being I feel myself a Christian and I bow joyously (avec allegresse) my Earl Wild playing the rare Bechstein-Moór Duplex-Coupler Grand Piano soul under the benevolent and light burden of Christ our Savior, as I attempt in supplication to do what his church out of love demands of us – now, as we shall not part that which God has joined, so shall I never agree to sever the ties that join feel- ing with thought, the language of the time with the essence of eternity, art in its highest manifes- tation – I shall not cease to be a musician as I increasingly become a Christian. Quite the contrary I hope just through this to attain a better music-conscience and so to fulfill my artistic task with increasing power.” In a letter written in 1860 to Jeanne Élisabeth Carolyne (Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein), Liszt admits that he felt a “mysterious feeling which has pierced my entire life as with a sacred wound. Yes, “Jesus Christ on the Cross,” a yearning longing after the Cross and the raising of the Cross, – this was ever my true inner calling...” Throughout his life, Liszt’s central struggle of his being was fought on religious lines. Since music was the oxygen he breathed, he expressed his deepest religious sentiments through his music. And it is his music that gives proof of the great sincerity of his religious aspirations. Liszt created an

– 12 – astonishing quantity of religious works, not only for chorus but also for the piano. His most famous piano cycle is a set of ten pieces entitled Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. The title of the collection was taken from a group of Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) poems published in 1830. Liszt began sketching one of the piano pieces (which eventually became the third in the set) in 1845. The rest of the pieces took form between 1847 and 1852. He published the collection in 1853. There were good reasons why Liszt occupied himself with devotional expression. He devel- oped a deep friendship with Jeanne Élisabeth Carolyne (Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein (1819-1887)) during his last year of touring in 1846. She followed Liszt from Russia to Weimar, eventually liv- ing out her final years in Rome, in extreme religious devotion, writing her 24-volume Inner Causes of the External Weakness of the Church. Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is dedicated to her. Funérailles [Disc 2, 6 ] is the seventh composition in Liszt’s cycle, and, perhaps the best know work in the collection. The title of the first sketch of the work (located at the Goethe and Schiller Archives in Weimar) is Magyar. The final version is dated October 1849. This is a clear reference by Liszt to the tragic events following the failure of 1848-1849 Hungarian War of Independence. The Austrian imperial and military courts put to death Count Lajos Batthyeány (the president of the first free Hungarian government) and sixteen officers from the leaders of the War of Independence. At this time Liszt lost some of his best and dearest friends. The sad events in his homeland affected him deeply. He wrote: “I too belong to that strong and ancient race, I too am a son of that original and undaunted nation, which is certainly destined still for better days to come. O my wild, distant fatherland! My friends unknown! My great, vast family! The cry of your heart beckons me close to you... Why does a harsh destiny keep me far away?” Swiss-German composer, Joseph Joachim Raff was a member of Liszt’s Weimar circle of friends and remembered that “Liszt has been deeply moved by the loss of his best Hungarian friends...” For many years many musicians and critics insisted that Funérailles had been occasioned by Chopin’s death (who died eleven days after Count Lajos Batthyeány was put to death). However, musicologist Lina Ramann unequivocally refuted the suggestion that this work had anything to do with Chopin’s death. Funérailles, in its blend of virtuosity and profundity, has few equals among Liszt’s works. In a sense, it is a pianistic homage to heroes (or perhaps, in a larger sense, a people) who go beyond history, through their patriotic death, to become immortal. More powerful or heartfelt funeral music than this has rarely been penned. Franz Liszt was an inveterate transcriber. Whether the melody was a simple folk song, a com- plex symphonic work, a lengthy chamber piece, an operatic aria, or a beautiful art-song, Liszt could not resist the urge to lovingly transform it into a piano work. More than half of his compositions are transcriptions, paraphrases, reminiscences, or fantasies on other composers’ music. Liszt pos- sessed an amazing response to poetic imagery. He believed that purely musical images of poetic

– 13 – ideas are capable of being projected to the listener and that he could illustrate such imagery without words. This was his lifelong aesthetic. Liszt transcribed about 150 songs. In addition, he tran- scribed for piano the complete sym- phonies of Beethoven, numerous works by Berlioz, Wagner, Rossini, Weber, and others. Virtually every musical work was grist for Liszt’s transcription mill. Liszt set an incredibly high standard for the art of transcription, and it is this standard that was the influencing factor and guideline for virtuoso pianists who were to follow. “The lied is, poetically as well as musically, an intrinsic product of the Germanic Muse,” wrote Liszt in an essay on Robert Franz. Liszt’s own song set- tings prove his own hypothesis – there are 57 settings of German texts, 11 French songs, 5 Italian, 3 Hungarian, one English and one Russian. Die Loreley (S532/R209) [Disc 2, 5 ] was originally cast in November 1841 by Liszt as a song to a text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). It is a passionate rhap- sody/ballad, reminiscences of Rhineland visits strengthened by personal experience, beginning with the lines:

I know not what it means Back: Lord Londonderry, Earl Wild, Michael Rolland Davis That I should be so sad; Front: Reginald Londonderry, Frederick K. Londonderry A legend of long ago and Hasta at Wynyard, 1986 (Photo by Richard Pare) Gives me no peace of mind.

– 14 – The piano transcription by Liszt of this song was published in 1861 and another version for voices and orchestra was published in 1863. Fryderyk Chopin’s Polish Melodies, Opus 74, are without a doubt the least known of the composer’s works. Composed between 1828 and 1845 and collected posthumously, they are com- positions of a lifetime – the product of continuing inspiration, and the reflection of Chopin’s very soul. Liszt first met Chopin in 1831, immediately after Chopin’s arrival in Paris. Their association was unlucky at best, and often flawed by misunderstandings and little warmth. It was Liszt who introduced George Sand to Chopin, resulting in a questionable and difficult relationship. When Chopin lent Liszt his apartment, Liszt used it for an assignation. This is something that Chopin discovered later and of which he did not approve. After Chopin’s death, Liszt showed abominable taste in publishing a terrible book on Chopin. The small volume was turgid at best, full of useless digressions and misinformation. Today most musicologists agree that the book was the handiwork of Liszt’s mistress, Carolyne Wittgenstein. Be that as it may, among Liszt’s song transcriptions are six by Chopin. They are some of Liszt’s most popular and endearing transcriptions. The transcrip- tions were created by Liszt during a period of thirteen years, from 1847 to 1860 and dedicated to the Princess Marie von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst [also known as Princess Marie von Sayn- Wittgenstein, daughter of Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein]. The fifth song transcription, Moja pieszczotka (“Meine Freuden,” “My Joys”) [Disc 2, 7 ] is a sheer lyrical outpouring of vir- ile expressions of love: not only is she the most beautiful, but a look from her is enough to set one aflame. The lover cannot resist the pleasure of taking her in his arms and wildly kissing her... to a mazurka rhythm. Liszt’s favorite works of literature, he let it be known, were Goethe’s Faust and Dante’s The Divine Comedy. It is therefore not surprising that Liszt had a preoccupation with the diabolical. In addition to his Totentanz, his Faust Symphony, his transcription for piano of Berlioz’s Symphonie fan- tastique, Liszt composed quite a few piano pieces with the devil as a focus. The best known of these are the five Mephisto Waltzes (the fifth is actually entitled Bagatelle sans tonalité) and the Mephisto Polka (S217/R39) [Disc 2, 8 ]. Composed in 1883, the Mephisto Polka enters strange tonal regions. Highly austere, its chromaticisms at times border on the polytonal. This work is not a pic- ture of a bedeviled young composer dancing to the macabre strains of ghostly music, but rather an old composer being wry, sarcastic, full of irony and devilish. The six short pieces which Liszt published in 1850 under the title Consolations had a literary inspiration. According to scholars, Liszt was familiar with the volume of poetry entitled Consolations by historian and poet Joseph Delorme (pseudonym for Charles Sainte-Beuve (1804- 1869)), which Liszt read shortly after its publication in 1830. Although Liszt began the set in the first half of the 1840s, it was not until the first half of 1849 that the ideas had been worked out. In

– 15 – Earl Wild performing Liszt concert at Londonderry Estate, 1986

– 16 – these pieces, Liszt achieved a precious cultivated elegance, choosing to write music simply to serve the melodic material. The six pieces were conceived as a unit (in fact, some to be played attacca) as suggested by the sequence of keys. The Consolation No.3 in D-flat [Disc 2, 9 ] has long enjoyed great popularity as a piece on its own. – Notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, ©2001

EARL WILD

“When Earl Wild performs, the Golden Age of the keyboard suddenly reappears.” TIME Magazine

Earl Wild is a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition. His legendary career, so distinguished and long, has continued for well over 70 years. Born in 1915, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Earl Wild’s technical accomplishments are often likened to what those of Liszt himself must have had. Born with absolute pitch he started playing the piano at three. Having studied with great pianists such as Egon Petri, his lineage can be traced back to Scharwenka, Busoni, Ravel, d’Albert and Liszt himself. Earl Wild’s career is dotted with musical legends. As a young pianist he was soloist with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. Since then he has performed with virtually every major con- ductor and symphony orchestra in the world. Rachmaninov was an important idol in his life. It’s been said of Earl Wild, “He’s the incarnation of Rachmaninov, Lhevinne and Rosenthal rolled into one!” In 1986 after hearing him play three sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts, devoted to Liszt, hon- oring the centenary of that composer’s death, one critic said, “I find it impossible to believe that he played those millions of notes with 70-year-old fingers, so fresh-sounding and precise were they. Perhaps he has a worn-out set up in his attic, a la Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray.” He’s one of the few American pianists to have achieved international as well as domestic celebri- ty. He has performed for six Presidents of the United States, beginning with Herbert Hoover, and in 1939, was the first classical pianist to give a recital on the new medium of Television. At four- teen he was performing in the Pittsburgh Symphony with Otto Klemperer as well as working at radio station KDKA, where he played many of his own compositions. As a virtuoso pianist, com- poser, transcriber, conductor, editor and teacher, Mr. Wild continues in the style of the legendary great artists of the past. – 17 – In addition to his distinguished concert career, which encompasses performances with con- ductors such as Stokowski, Reiner, Maazel, Solti and Mitropoulos, and artists like Callas, Tourel, Pons, Melchior, Peerce and Bumbry, Wild successfully shines as both a conductor and composer. His Easter oratorio, Revelations, was broadcast by the ABC network in 1962 and again in 1964. Wild’s recent composition, Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster for piano and orchestra (“Doo-Dah” Variations), premiered with Wild as soloist with the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra in 1992. In 1986 Mr. Wild was awarded the Liszt Medal by the People’s Republic of Hungary in recognition of his long and devoted association with the music of Franz Liszt. Also in 1986, a TV documentary entitled Wild about Liszt, filmed at Wynyard, the Marquess of Londonderry’s family estate, received the British Petroleum Award for best musical documentary. Liszt is a composer who has been closely associated with Mr. Wild throughout his long career. He has been performing all Liszt recitals for over forty years. In New York City in 1961, he gave a monumental all Liszt recital celebrating the 150th anniversary of Liszt’s birth. In 1986, honoring the 100th year of Liszt’s death, he gave a series of three recitals entitled “Liszt the Poet,” “Liszt the Transcriber,” and “Liszt the Virtuoso,” in New York’s Carnegie Hall and other recital halls of the world. Championing composers such as Liszt long before they were fashionable, is part of the foun- dation on which Mr. Wild has built his long and successful career. Mr. Wild is one of today’s most recorded pianists, having made his first disc in 1938 for RCA. Since 1938, he has recorded with 21 different record labels, resulting in a discography that includes more than 33 piano concertos, 14 chamber works, and 600 solo piano pieces. Today at 85, Mr. Wild continues to record and perform concerts throughout the world. He has been called “the finest transcriber of our time,” and his many piano transcriptions are widely known and respected. In 1997, he won a Grammy® Award for his disc, “The Romantic Master” – Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions. Praised by critics and music lovers around the world as a “stunning document of musical sensitivity and virtuosity” and “a tribute to America’s greatest pianistic treasure” – this CD is once again available in its original HDCD state-of-the-art audio- phile sound on Ivory Classics® [70907]. Along with the release of over 20 other CDs in the last 10 years, when he was 79, Earl Wild recorded a well received Beethoven disc which included the monumental Hammerklavier Sonata, as well as another disc composed of Rachmaninov’s Preludes and the Second Piano Sonata. Earl Wild is an exclusive Ivory Classics® artist. In celebration of his 85th birthday, Ivory Classics® released 20th and 21st Century Piano Sonatas [71005], which includes Mr. Wild’s own Piano Sonata (2000).

– 18 – CREDITS

Recorded: December 1985 in New York City (DDD). Original Producer and Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin Design: Communication Graphics Cover Photograph: Earl Wild in 1986 by Malcolm Crowthers taken at “Wynyard,” Lord Londonderry’s family home. Inside Tray Photo: Reception at “Wynyard” following Liszt Recital by Earl Wild on the 100th anniversary of Liszt’s death (July 31, 1986).

To place an order or to be included on mailing list: Ivory Classics™ • P.O. Box 341068 • Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799 [email protected] • Website: http://www.IvoryClassics.com EAARLRL WIILDLD LIISZTSZT THE 1985 SESSIONS

DISC 1 DISC 2 1 Dante Sonata 15:58 1 - 2 Bach/Liszt: Fantasia and 2 Sonetto del Petrarca No.47 6:20 Fugue in G minor 11:12 3 Sonetto del Petrarca No.104 6:31 3 - 4 Sonata in B minor 28:27 4 Sonetto del Petrarca No.123 7:04 5 Die Loreley 6:31 5 Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este 7:41 6 Funérailles 12:29 6 Ballade No.2 in B minor 13:59 7 Chopin/Liszt: My Joys 4:21 7 Liebesträume No.2 in E flat Major 4:27 8 Mephisto Polka 4:03 8 Liebesträume No.3 in A flat Major 4:26 9 Consolation No.3 in D flat Major 4:32 9 Un Sospiro 5:14 Total Playing Time: 72:16 Total Playing Time: 72:03

Original and Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson

2001 Ivory Classics® • All Rights Reserved. 64405-72001 STEREO Ivory Classics® • P.O. Box 341068 Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 U.S.A. Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799 ® [email protected] • Website: www.IvoryClassics.com