Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Franz Liszt appreciation thread.

I agree with you! In fact I like the first AND second better than the third, and the first is my favourite. However I do think this is simply because i've heard the third a minimum of a million times rather than the other two being better - I do think the third is the more attractive work despite how numb i've become to it. But all three are beautiful.



Me too...I think this extended miniature contains the essence of Romanticism. It is one of my favourite piano works by anyone.

I just realised, while I agree with you that Au bord d'une source is more a nature study, I disagree with Waldszenen predating it. Waldszenen was written in 1848 I believe, while Au bord d'une source was written in it's first form (in the Album D'un Voyageur suite) in around 1836, and then revised in the 50's into the version we know and love today.

I think his 2nd Ballade is much better than any of Chopin's 4 .

*runs away so he doesn't get killed*

While I don't agree with you, i've said similar things many times. I personally believe that Liszt's 2nd is every bit as good as Chopin's masterful 4th Ballade (which I believe to be Chopin's greatest work, and my favourite work by him), and I like Liszt's better. I'm not, however, going to say that it is better

So as OP, i'm more or less on your side. I will protect you from being killed

It took me forever to find a good recording of this work - all the recordings on youtube just didn't do it for me...until I found this one by Stephen Hough, who pulls the work off pretty much perfectly IMO.

A lot of folks seemed to like my interpretation of it, I recorded the Second Ballade for the Liszt e-cital. I don't think it is fair to compare it to the Chopin ballades. They're in different, equally distant and fantastic solar systems. The Liszt just gives the impression of being endlessly immense, generous and vivid, and the Chopin is so inward and intimate. There's no way to meaningfully compare them.

Pffffffffft!



Good idea that.

Well yes. I do agree with you.

On another note, i've been listening to his 1st Ballade lately as well. It is not in the same world of quality and is a much more light-hearted work, but I still love this piece. Anyone else for his first Ballade? Perhaps not first-rate Liszt, but some parts are absolutely magical.

here's a beautiful Liszt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEkonOxis_k

Well, three of them, anyway.

And I think y'all are nuts.

Or, at least, allowing overexposure to tarnish the Chopin. It's not his fault, or their fault, that they're overplayed.

Liszt was a very fine composer, and a musical genius. But Chopin occupies a different universe.

That's my take, anyway. (These forums wouldn't be very interesting if we all agreed on everything!)

-J

Yes, but not a better universe.

This. I love them both dearly, but I think that with these two, saying one is greater than the other is purely subjective. For me personally, where they more or less cancel each other out in piano works, Liszt has so much great stuff away from the piano that Chopin obviously just does not have.

Perhaps you could could back up for a moment and ask what exactly beet31425 meant by a 'different universe'?

I suspect I know what he means, and even more, where he is going with this, but far be it for me to give that away.

Oh, I think they know as well as you. Well, shame on me for crashing a Liszt appreciation thread.

Seriously, I used to hate Liszt. Let's say I used to give him a 2 and Chopin a 10. Then, a few years ago (partly from reading the posts of some folks here), I gave him a more careful listen, and came to completely reevaluate him. I saw that what I used to hear as bombast was just a part of his vocabulary, which indeed was rich, nuanced and expressive. Sonetto 104 and even the Dante Sonata are on my might-play-someday list.

So I think Liszt is quite good-- I'd give him something like a 7 or 8 now. But Chopin is still a 10. Almost every nuance, every little corner of his compositions, sparkles like a gem. It can sometimes be hard to hear it since some of his pieces are too popular for their own good, and ours. But, Liszt vs. Chopin is like the difference between a powerful, accomplished wise mortal... and a god.

All my opinion, of course, and I already know it's not shared by others.

-Jason

See for me, i'm the same, but the other way around . And it's not just in the music, it's the persona too. Where I get put off by the person that was Chopin, Liszt was truly a godlike human being - and when I listen to his music, I hear not only the sublime music, but know it came from a person who was worthy of it. I just find Liszt a lot easier to love, and frankly his music touches me more. But to each his own! I love Chopin, i've been listening to him a lot lately. I've really re-evaluated his piano concerti, after not liking them that much initially I now am officially in love with them.

I'm not expecting a revelation. Do you think I missed something? I don't.



edit: I still don't.

Is it fair game to discuss his contribution to technique in this thread then? I'll start with this since I recently made the clips for another thread. Mazeppa has been brought up a few times for the seemingly odd use of 2-4, 2-4, 2-4, etc fingering on the thirds, generally explained as helping to achieve the sensation of a galloping horse. But digging around, I found a few more examples. The effect, to be sure, seems to result in a punchier sound. If I recall correctly, Horowitz also uses this fingering in the ascending thirds preceding the finale in his transcription of Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" achieving an extraordinary sound.


from Mazeppa

from the 6th Paganini etude-


from Hungarian Rhapsody #1



[/quote]

Liszt Toccata

Alexis Weissenberg plays Liszt (RIP Alexis, July 26, 1929 - January 8, 2012)

[/quote]

I don't have anything to add to this discussion, but that's very interesting! How he uses specific fingerings to achieve an effect in his music. Fiddling around on the piano right now, it does achieve that punchier sound. I don't know how he contributed to technique, other than using new figurations and writing virtuoso stuff that really had not been done before on the piano.