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Franz Liszt, who was the greatest virtuoso pianist in the nineteenth-century, was also a productive composer. But his tremendous technique brought the misunderstanding that his compositions were just flashy and superficial, thus creating an obstacle for appreciating his music. The purpose of this study is to encourage an understanding of the value of Liszt's music, especially his Schubert Lieder transcriptions. The study starts with an introduction, which states the revival of the art of transcription, gives the muscial background of Liszt and describes the instruments that were available to him. Then follows a discussion about his experimentation with the conventional piano techniques and how he applied them to the song transcriptions. Two transcriptions "Hark, Hark, the Lark" and "Der Lindenbaum" are analyzed in detail to show the transcriptive procedure and the relation between the poetry and the musical expression. A conclusion summarizes the study.

Of all the composers of German Lied, Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf can be considered the true giants of this musical form. Schubert's position is secure as the greatest composer of the Lied. Wolf, though challenging Schubert in this particular idiom only, brought the Lied to its culmination. This study will show, by comparative analysis, the respective treatment by Fr anz Schubert and Hugo Wolf of selected poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Though Schubert composed some seventy songs (not including multiple settings of the same text), and Wolf fifty-one, based on the poetry of Goethe, they shared only thirteen of these poems in common. Four songs by each composer have been selected for detailed analysis.

Because of the lack of information concerning the success or failure of Schubert's bilingual edition and concerning the relationship between the English texts and Schubert's settings, most performers take the conservative route of performing both the songs from Lady of the Lake and the rest of Schubert's English song repertoire only with the German translations. Because of the desirability of performing this repertoire in English for English-speaking audiences, this study examines all of the English songs of Schubert to determine whether the original poems can be successfully substituted for the German translations. Editions of the settings that can be effectively performed with the English texts are included in the appendix, in order to make available editions which reflect Schubert's ambition to make his songs easily accessible to non-German-speaking audiences.

This investigation sought to compare the transcription techniques of two pianist-composers, Godowsky and Liszt, using three Schubert lieder as examples. The lieder were "Das Wandern" from Die Schöne Müllerin, "Gute Nacht" from Winterreise, and "Liebesbotschaft" from Schwanengesang. They were compared using four criteria: tonality, counterpoint, timbral effects, and harmony. Liszt, following a practice common in the nineteenth century, was primarily concerned with bringing new music into the home of the domestic pianist. The piano transcription was the most widely used and successful medium for accomplishing this. Liszt also frequently transcribed pieces of a particular composer in order to promulgate them by featuring them in his recitals. The Schubert lieder fall into this category. Liszt did not drastically alter the original in these compositions. Indeed, in the cases of "Liebesbotschaft" and "Das Wandern," very little alteration beyond the incorporation of the melody into the piano accompaniment, occurs.Godowsky, in contrast, viewed the transcription as a vehicle for composing a new piece. He intended to improve upon the original by adding his own inspiration to it. Godowsky was particularly ingenious in adding counterpoint, often chromatic, to the original. Examples of Godowsky's use of counterpoint can be found in "Das Wandern" and "Gute Nacht." While Liszt strove to remain faithful to Schubert's intentions, Godowsky exercised his ingenuity at will, being only loosely concerned with the texture and atmosphere of the lieder. "Gute Nacht" and "Liebesbotschaft" are two examples that show how far afield Godowsky could stray from the original by the addition of chromatic voicing and counterpoint. Godowsky*s compositions can be viewed as perhaps the final statement on the possibilities of piano writing in the traditional sense. As such these works deserve to be investigated and performed.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) made fifty-six transcriptions of Schubert's songs over a period of eight years (1838-46) to introduce the name of the composer, who was little known both in and outside Vienna during his lifetime. Because Liszt intentionally preserved all the details of the original songs, these transcriptions present challenges for a pianist, such as how to produce a vocal line on the piano, as well as interpretive issues such as ornamentation, style, and conveying the meaning of the lyrics on the piano. The purpose of this study is to introduce pianists to study practices employed by singers, with the goal of interpreting the vocal aspects of Liszt's Schubert song transcriptions. The composer Robert Schumann once remarked that Liszt's transcriptions were perhaps the most difficult pieces written for the piano up to that time, and only an intelligent artist could satisfy Liszt's high level of virtuosity without destroying the identity of the original work. This could be considered a warning to pianists not to focus on the technical aspects only. The pedagogical guide presented in the study, based on singers' approaches to the actual songs, should help pianists to "see beyond the notes" and achieve a performance closer to the heart of the songs.