The Name You Trust for Classical Music

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the CD LISZT: Etudes

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Music AND Flowers. The Perfect Gifts.

Spend $50 or more on NaxosDirect and we'll give you a $10 coupon for 1800Flowers.com family of stores. Offer ends Feb. 12th. Need suggestions? Click here

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Grammy Winners on Sale

Masters of American Music

Valentine�s Day Special

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD
        Pop/Rock Concert

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

LISZT: Etudes

Home

Classical Music

Instrumental

View large image

Total playing time: 01:03:05

$8.99 (CD)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this CD Link to this page

Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Etude en douze exercices Etudes de concert Morceau de salon Ab irato Mazeppa On 1st December a very talented boy by the name of...

Read more about this recording

Franz Liszt (1811-1886):

Etude en douze exercices Etudes de concert

Morceau de salon Ab irato Mazeppa

On 1st December a very talented boy by the name of Liszt, coming here from Pressburg, gave a concert in the town grand concert-hall, and through his playing and his remarkable facility aroused general wonder. ... He received great and rousing applause.

Wiener Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. 7.12.1822

Born at Raiding, in Hungary, in 1811, the son of Adam Liszt, a steward in the service of Haydn's former patrons, the Esterhazy Princes, Franz Liszt had early encouragement from members of the Hungarian nobility, allowing him in 1822 to move to Vienna, for lessons with Czerny and a famous meeting with Beethoven. From there he moved to Paris, where Cherubini refused him admission to the Conservatoire. Nevertheless he was able to impress audiences by his performance, now supported by the Erard family, piano manufacturers whose wares he was able to advertise in the concert tours on which he embarked. In 1827 Adam Liszt died, and Franz Liszt was now joined again by his mother in Paris, while using his time to teach, to read and benefit from the intellectual society with which he came into contact. His interest in virtuoso performance was renewed when he heard the great violinist Paganini, whose technical accomplishments he now set out to emulate.

The years that followed brought a series of compositions, including transcriptions of songs and operatic fantasies, part of the stock-in-trade of a virtuoso. Liszt's relationship with a married woman, the Comtesse Marie d'Agoult, led to his departure from Paris for years of travel abroad, first to Switzerland, then back to Paris, before leaving for Italy, Vienna and Hungary. By 1844 his relationship with his mistress, the mother of his three children, was at an end, but his concert activities continued until 1847, the year in which his association began with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Polish heiress, the estranged wife of a Russian prince. The following year he settled with her in Weimar, the city of Goethe, turning his attention now to the development of a newer form of orchestral music, the symphonic poem, and, as always, to the revision and publication of earlier compositions.

It was in 1861 at the age of fifty that Liszt moved to Rome, following Princess Carolyne, who had settled there a year earlier. Divorce and annulment seemed to have opened the way to their marriage, but they now continued to live in separate apartments in the city. Liszt eventually took minor orders and developed a pattern of life that divided his time between Weimar, where he imparted advice to a younger generation, Rome, where he was able to pursue his religious interests, and Pest, where he returned now as a national hero. He died in 1886 in Bayreuth, where his daughter Cosima, former wife of Hans von B�low and widow of Richard Wagner, lived, concerned with the continued propagation of her husband's music.

Liszt was a musician of remarkable precocity. His first concerts in Oedenburg and Pressburg had been followed by his first appearances in Vienna, piano lessons with Czerny and composition lessons with Salieri. Setting out for Paris, he gave performances first in Pest, establishing his Hungarian identity, followed by a series of appearances in leading German cities, as, like Mozart before him, he made his way to Paris, where his performances created a similar sensation. A successful visit to England in 1824 was followed by a return to Paris and to composition lessons from Ferdinando Paer, who encouraged and collaborated in the composition of Liszt's only opera, Don Sanche, ou le ch�teau d'amour, staged at the Paris Opera in October 1825.

By the age of thirteen Liszt had started work on the most significant of his first published compositions, the so-called Etude en douze exercices, issued in Marseille and in Paris in 1826 as Opus 6, under the more ambitious title of Etude en quarante-huit exercices dans tous les tons majeurs et mineurs. In fact only twelve studies were published, with a dedication to Lydia Garella, of whom little else is known. These, however, formed the basis of later revisions, resulting in the Vingt-quatre grandes etudes of 1837, dedicated to Czerny and again including only twelve studies. These led, in turn, to the Etudes d'execution transcendante of 1851, to which titles were added. The original intention is clear in the choice of keys, starting with C major, followed by A minor, and continuing with the circle of fifths, moving downwards into the keys with flats, F major and D minor, B flat major and G minor, E flat major and C minor, A flat major and F minor, D flat major and a final B flat minor. The studies start with a brilliant Allegro con fuoco, followed by divided octaves in the second exercise. The third of the set is gently evocative, while the fourth provided the basis for the later Mazeppa. The fifth exercise was the basis of Feux-follets (Will-o'-the-wisp) and the sixth makes particular demands in the nature of its phrasing. In 1851 the seventh became Harmonies du soir (Evening Harmonies) and the eighth provides ample exercise in its rapid left-hand scales. The cantabile ninth offers a graceful contrast to the preceding sound and fury, the tenth is a rapid and brilliant study in triplets, the eleventh had no counterpart in the 1851 revision, and the set ends with an expressive legato study.

The two concert studies Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes) and Waldesrauschen (Forest Murmurs) were written in Rome in 1862 and 1863, dedicated to Dionys Pruckner, and intended for Lebert and Stark's Klavierschule. Gnomenreigen, published as the second of the pair, calls for the alternation of hands in a rapid scherzo. Waldesrauschen is an evocative piece, its melody accompanied by gently rippling figuration.

Three other concert studies are dated to 1848 and were published in 1849 with a dedication to Liszt's uncle, Eduard Liszt, in a later version acquiring the titles Il lamento, La leggierezza and Un sospiro. The first study opens with a cadenza that brings with it the descending figure on which the whole work is based. The second, suggesting the language of Chopin, has a brief introduction, its thematic Quasi allegretto moving forward to the more elaborate figuration that follows. The last of the three studies accompanies its now familiar melody, shared between the hands, with arpeggios of mounting intensity, leading to an ending of great serenity.

The Morceau de salon, etude de perfectionnement, was written in 1840 for the Methode des methodes de piano by the Belgian composer and theorist Fran�ois Joseph Fetis. This was revised in 1852 as Ab irato, its anger briefly modified, before a fiercer conclusion.

Mazeppa was derived from material that underwent various changes, from its first appearance as the fourth of the Douze exercices and later emergence in the revisions and developments of that work. The study of this name was written in 1840 and published in 1847, with a dedication to Victor Hugo, on whose poetic treatment of the story it is based. It found further place in Liszt's symphonic poem of the same title. Mazeppa, page to the King of Poland, is found guilty of an intrigue with the wife of a nobleman. Tied to the back of a wild horse, which is whipped into madness, he is carried through forests and across rivers until the horse falls dead on the plains of Ukraine, where Mazeppa is revived by peasants. The wild ride became a subject of romantic interest after Byron's poem of 1819, reflected in Hugo's poem and in a painting by Gericault.

Keith Anderson

Disc 1

2 Konzert-Etuden, S145/R6

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 January - 2 Feruary, 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes) - 3:12
Waldesrauschen (Forest Murmurs) - 4:26

3 Grand Concert Etudes, S144/R5

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 January - 2 February, 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

No. 1 in A flat major, 'Il lamento': A capriccio - 9:04
No. 2 in F minor, 'La leggierezza': A capriccio - 4:45
No. 3 in D flat major, 'Un sospiro': Allegro - 5:39

Etude en douze exercices, S136/R1

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 Jan. - 2 Feb. 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

Allegro con fuoco - 1:09
Allegro non molto - 1:16
Allegro sempre legato - 2:25
Allegro grazioso - 1:06
Moderato - 2:32
Molto agitato - 1:15
Allegretto con molta espressione - 2:14
Allegro con spirito - 1:48
Allegro grazioso - 3:42
Moderato - 1:48
Allegro grazioso - 2:42
Allegro non troppo - 1:59

Morceau de salon, etude de perfectionnement, S. 142/R4a

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 January - 2 February, 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

Morceau de salon, etude de perfectionnement, S. 142/R4a - 2:07

Ab irato, grande etude de perfectionnement, S142/R4b

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 Jan. - 2 Feb. 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

Ab irato, grande etude de perfectionnement, S142/R4b - 2:47

Mazeppa, S136/R2c

(more info)

Composed by: Franz Liszt
William Wolfram, piano
Recording date: 30 Jan. - 2 Feb. 2003
Produced by: Silver, Bonnie

Mazeppa, S136/R2c - 7:09

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Liszt, Franz

Artist(s):
Wolfram, William

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 747313201426
Item Number: 8557014
Release Date: Apr 1, 2004