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This study of Franz Liszt presents the Hungarian master as a figure of conflicting forces, a sort of conflicting forces, a sort of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde of music. In other words, Liszt was a dual personality. In this study of Liszt's major piano works, it will become evident that several factors were vital in the ultimate realization of these works.

Jenny Liu Ng Mui. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-128). / INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / PART I LISZT'S RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT AND HIS POSITION IN 19TH-CENTURY CHURCH MUSIC REFORM / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Liszt's religious development --- p.5 / The influence of Adam Liszt / The first religious outburst / The influence of the Saint-Simonians / The influence of the Abbe de Lammenais / The influence of Princess Wittgenstein / The Abbe Liszt / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Liszt's position in 19th-century church music reform --- p.13 / The Cecilian Movement / Liszt's ideal of church music / Liszt's sacred choral works / The evolution of Liszt's church music reform / The reception of Liszt's sacred choral works / "PART II LISZT'S VIA CRUCIS: COMPOSITIONAL BACKGROUND, RECEPTION AND TEXT" / Chapter Chapter 3 --- The compositional background and reception of Via Crucis --- p.26 / Liszt's late years / Date and place of composition / The influence of artworks on the composition / The reception of Via Crucis / Chapter Chapter 4 --- The text of Via Crucis --- p.32 / Biblical excerpts / Verses from Latin hymns / The German chorales / The text of Via Crucis as compared with traditional Passions / PART III UNITY AND CONTRAST IN VIA CRUCIS / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Thematic design in Via Crucis --- p.42 / Thematic cross-reference / The Cross motif / Jesus' theme / Veronica's theme / Large-scale repetition / The Prelude and Station XIV / The theme of the procession / Stations III， VII and IX / Stations IV and XIII / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Harmonic design in Via Crucis --- p.54 / The structural importance of the tritone / Station V / Station XI / The six monologues / The broad layout / The emphasis on the use of symmetric structures / Station II / Station IV / Station VIII / Station X / Station XII / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Stylistic contrast in Via Crucis --- p.67 / The adoption of Palestrina style / Texture / Rhythmic design / Melodic design / Harmonic design / Text setting / The adopt ion of Bach chorale style / O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden / O Traurigkeit / The coexistence of German chorales and Latin hymns / CONCLUSION --- p.78 / EXAMPLES --- p.80 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.123

In 1970, the Hungarian publishing firm Editio Musica Budapest began a long term project, ending in 2005, that endeavored to compile and publish all Liszt's works in a complete edition titled, The New Liszt Edition (NLE). Through the efforts of this firm, Liszt's Technical Studies were published in the way that he had originally intended for the first time in 1983. Yet, although the eminent Liszt-scholar Michael Saffle has stated that 'Pedagogy is one of the most thoroughly-mined veins of Liszt material ever uncovered', academic discussions on Liszt's Technical Studies (Walker, 2005), his definitive pedagogical work for piano, are scarce. What it was that Liszt set out as being fundamental to the acquisition of pianistic virtuosity in the Technical Studies and the nature of its trajectory is generally unknown. Through an examination of the didactic instruction Liszt supplied in the Preface of the autograph manuscript to the Technical Studies and specific technical commentaries written by Mme. Auguste Boissier in her Liszt pedagogue, I will argue that the Technical Studies are built on six artistic and mechanical principles, exemplified by Liszt in the exercises, written to help the pianist acquire technical virtuosity. The methodical divisions of the work into sections that deal with specific mechanical objectives are illustrated with musical examples and their technical trajectory defined.

The relationship between Franz Liszt and Ludwig van Beethoven has always held a special position in the biographical tradition of Liszt. Liszt claimed that he received a consecration kiss (the Weihekuss) from Beethoven when he was eleven. However, the story probably was fabricated: in other words, the personal relationship between Liszt and Beethoven was never realized and never existed. Even though Beethoven and Liszt probably have never met, the Weihekuss still served as, in Liszt's words, "the palladium of my whole career as an artist." Liszt constructed a rather complicated relationship with Beethoven around this myth. In this study, I shall examine how the Weihekuss influenced both Liszt's life and his professional development as a performer and editor. In chapter one, I will analyze Liszt's psychological state through the anecdote and further examine the impact that Beethoven had inserted on both Liszt's life and career. On becoming a concert pianist, Liszt was the first person who performed Beethoven's piano sonatas in public and eventually elevated the genre of the sonata into the concert repertory. In chapter two, through eyewitness testimonies, Liszt will be viewed in a broader cultural and historical perspective. Meanwhile, Liszt's relationship with his audiences and his marketing strategies will also be included in this discussion. Liszt's "authority" on Beethoven led him to complete an edition of Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas in 1857. By examining Liszt's edition, particularly those sonatas that he performed, one can get a sense of how Liszt himself may have interpreted the music. According to Liszt himself, he performed ten Beethoven piano sonatas in public. These ten sonatas will be the primary focus in chapter three. Liszt both added and omitted articulation and pedal markings, creating different emphases and lines from those present in Beethoven's original manuscripts. The edition, in a sense, is Liszt's final tribute to Beethoven, but also reveals his constant disappointment in never having met the composer. To edit the sonatas was, for Liszt, a way to communicate with Beethoven spiritually, if not personally.

The dissertation examines Liszt's experimentation with harmonic, formal, and programmatic procedures in the piano works of his Weimar period (1848--1861). Liszt's music has often been criticized as "new wine in old bottles." His radical development of keyboard technique and harmonic vocabulary appears contained within, and constrained by, traditional forms. Here, however, it is argued that Liszt's "form" and "content" go hand in hand. A change in one compositional element (e.g., harmonic vocabulary) leads to changes in other elements (e.g., formal and tonal design), so that a kind of compositional "chain reaction" occurs. / Chapter one (introduction) establishes the plan of study and describes three organizational strategies ("conflict," "block," and "object") found in the selected works. Chapter two investigates the Etudes d'execution transcendante and focuses on harmonic innovations at the thematic level. In comparing different versions of the Etudes, the chapter shows how the composer's virtuoso keyboard idiom interacts with harmonic content and how surface harmonic procedures function as structural determinants. Chapter three concentrates on the smaller sets of "poetic" piano works. These include the Consolations , the Liebestraume, and the two Ballades as well as selections from the larger cyclical collections, the Annees de pelerinage and the Harmonies poetiques et religieuses. The analytical focus is on Liszt's manipulations of phrase- and section-level formal functions. The works display strophic and through-compositional tendencies that mirror developments in nineteenth-century lieder, and formal ambiguities that arise from the hybridization of traditional instrumental formal types. / Chapter four focuses exclusively on the B-minor Sonata. The composition, perhaps Liszt's most successful and complex work, engages us in a synthetic approach to harmony, form, and programme. The motivic and formal design of the Sonata may be accounted for in programmatic terms. Compositional similarities between the Sonata and the Faust Symphony suggest their shared programmatic subtext. The extensively developed "love interest" in Goethe's Faust invokes issues of gender and sexuality. The programme-related construction of gender as well as the arousal and channeling of desire can be connected with the Sonata's formal and tonal organization. Emphasizing the use of five motives and their various transformations, it is shown how Liszt portrays, through musical means, the three principal characters---Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles---and how the work embodies a variety of narratological and interpretive paradigmsheroic, feminist, and psychological.

In 1970, the Hungarian publishing firm Editio Musica Budapest began a long term project, ending in 2005, that endeavored to compile and publish all Liszt's works in a complete edition titled, The New Liszt Edition (NLE). Through the efforts of this firm, Liszt's Technical Studies were published in the way that he had originally intended for the first time in 1983. Yet, although the eminent Liszt-scholar Michael Saffle has stated that 'Pedagogy is one of the most thoroughly-mined veins of Liszt material ever uncovered', academic discussions on Liszt's Technical Studies (Walker, 2005), his definitive pedagogical work for piano, are scarce. What it was that Liszt set out as being fundamental to the acquisition of pianistic virtuosity in the Technical Studies and the nature of its trajectory is generally unknown. Through an examination of the didactic instruction Liszt supplied in the Preface of the autograph manuscript to the Technical Studies and specific technical commentaries written by Mme. Auguste Boissier in her Liszt pedagogue, I will argue that the Technical Studies are built on six artistic and mechanical principles, exemplified by Liszt in the exercises, written to help the pianist acquire technical virtuosity. The methodical divisions of the work into sections that deal with specific mechanical objectives are illustrated with musical examples and their technical trajectory defined.

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Through his exceptional creative and performing abilities, Franz Liszt was able to transform compositions of many kinds into unified, intelligible, and pleasing arrangements for piano. Nineteenth-century definitions of "arrangement" and "Klavierauszug," which focus on the process of reworking a composition for a different medium, do not adequately describe Liszt's work in this area. His piano transcriptions of Schubert's songs, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and the symphonies of Beethoven are not note-for-note transcriptions; rather, they reinterpret the originals in recasting them as compositions for solo piano. Writing about Liszt's versions of Schubert's songs, a Viennese critic identified as "Carlo" heralded Liszt as the creator of a new genre and declared him to have made Schubert's songs the property of cultured pianists. Moreover, Liszt himself designated his work with Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and the symphonies of Beethoven "Partitions de piano": literally, piano scores. As is well known, concepts of genre in general create problems for musicologists; musical arrangements add a new dimension of difficulty to the problem. Whereas Carl Dahlhaus identifies genre as a tool for interpreting composers' responses to the social dimension of music in the fabric of individual compositions, Jeffrey Kallberg perceives it as a "social phenomenon shared by composers and listeners alike." The latter concept provides a more suitable framework for discussing the genre of transcriptions, for their importance derives in large part from relationships between the original and the derivative works, both as constructed by Liszt and perceived by critics and audiences. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century's, Liszt's transcriptions of songs and symphonies were construed as both compositions for pianists and subsets of the originals. Consequently, these compositions should be studied for their own musical value as well as for the light that they shed on the original works. Liszt's transcriptions are derivative and at the same time created distinct genres.