Berlioz/Liszt: Symphonie Fantastique - II - Un Bal

[electrafingers]

Here is Liszt's version for Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, second movement (with a few changes I made). Please feel free to write any kind of comments.

[donjuan]

Beautiful! 

With that performance, you could take Idil Biret and Leslie Howard to school any day!! never have I heard anyone capture the spirit of the orchestral work on the piano so well.

[liszt1022]

Congratulations and thank you for learning this!
I'm in the process of making a new transcription of this piece and I've collected every piano recording of it out there (there are 8.) Will you be learning the other movements as well?

[electrafingers]

Thank you for the comments.

Congratulations and thank you for learning this!
I'm in the process of making a new transcription of this piece and I've collected every piano recording of it out there (there are 8.) Will you be learning the other movements as well?

I might start learning the 4th movement soon, but probably not more than that at the moment. Btw, what 8 performances are there? The only ones I've heard of are Idil Biert and Leslie Howard.

[liszt1022]

Thank you for the comments.

I might start learning the 4th movement soon, but probably not more than that at the moment. Btw, what 8 performances are there? The only ones I've heard of are Idil Biert and Leslie Howard.

Bruno Mezzena: 1976 - played Liszt's transcription

Francois-Rene Duchable: 1979 - played a transcription that was mostly his own (though it is credited as Liszt)

Idil Biret: 1979 - played mostly Liszt (changed some things)

Leslie Howard: 1990 - Liszt's transcription as part of the Complete Liszt series

Nikolai Petrov: 1991 - plays a transcription that's 95% Liszt and 5% his own but takes pretty much all the credit for it

Idil Biret: 1992 - a different recording than the 1979 one. This is the one that's on the Naxos CD. Mostly Liszt, but more changes this time than in 1979.

Pierre Reach: 1993 - mostly Liszt

Todd Crow: 2001 - all Liszt

Most of these are pretty easy to come by, except for Bruno Mezzena and Biret 1979. Both of those I could only find on record, in the stock of different European record dealers, who only had one each, after months of searching. Duchable I could only find in CD form in a 3-disc compilation called "The Young Duchable." That last one, by the way, is the absolute best out of all of them, hands down.

If you want to see the depths of an unhealthy obsession with this piece and the different recordings on piano, plus notes on my own workings of a piano arrangement, check out my livejournal dedicated exclusively to it.
https://op14.livejournal.com/
if you start from the earliest entry it's more interesting, I guess.

shameless plug: a live recording of me doing mvt. 4 last year
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,16498.0.html



     About yours: at around 2:19 you make the change that everybody who plays this on piano makes except for those who play exclusively Liszt's transcription. Liszt made his arrangement based on an early version of the Symphonie, which had been performed orchestrally in that form by the time Liszt got to it. Liszt treated the Symphonie with the most respect he'd ever shown in a transcription by that point and didn't include any new material, just creative ways of dealing with the orchestration and part writing.
     The chromatic ideas that are present during the "Idee Fixe" statement in mvt. 2 in Liszt's transcription, at the time I mentioned above, are actually how the orchestra parts were written. Berlioz later revised it to include fragments of the mvt. 2 theme, possibly to make it sound like it fits in better with the movement (because, honestly, it doesn't really feel like it belongs there, or in any movement except 1.) Pianists are stuck between honoring Liszt's intentions and presenting a transcription of an early version, or reworking the parts that Berlioz later updated so that listeners who are familiar with the orchestral version won't wonder "why is that in there?" Personally, I'd be likely to update the text if I had the capacity as a pianist to play Liszt's transcription at all.
     It's interesting that in the sleeve notes to Leslie Howard's recording he mentions that they were considering updating the transcription for the recording, but that the part in mvt. 2 would have been too drastic a change from Liszt. Thankfully, they decided to keep all of Liszt's text (which seems like it would have been a foregone conclusion, given the series.)


I e-mailed Todd Crow and asked him (among other things) what the most difficult parts of Liszt's transcription are, and one of the items he mentioned was the finale to mvt. 2. The LH octaves and RH leaps are two things that keeps me from playing this mvt. Good job on both of those.

and as a P.S., there are no other solo piano arrangements of this piece. Liszt's is the only one, and Otto Singer arranged mvts. 2 and 4 for piano four hands. Also, Liszt later re-transcribed the 4th movement, and it's pretty different from the one you find in the complete Symphonie transcription. If you find any clue that it has been transcribed or recorded somewhere that I'm not aware of, please let me know. I also have a two-page music sheet from the 1920's of a couple tunes from mvt. 2 for piano solo (in the key of G.) That one doesn't count.

[electrafingers]

Hi liszt1022!

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. I didn't know about the other performances for that piece. I'll try to find Petrov's recording. Is it any good?

Because you've done such a profound investigation about this piece and the piano transcription (I really didn't understand what was wrong with the Idee Fixe part in Liszt's version!), I'm sure you can criticize my performance also for its bad features. I'd be happy if you could do it! I prepared this movement in only 3 weeks for the concert and of course I'm far from being satisfied.

Thank you,
Ishay

[liszt1022]

I don't like Petrov's recording. He uses too little pedal and his sound is pretty dry. It bothers me how much credit he takes for the transcription ("Transcribed by Nikolai Petrov based on the Franz Liszt transcription") when it really is virtually all Liszt. Saying that the transcription is 5% Petrov is being generous.

find Duchable's recording, the CD set also includes the sonata by Paul Dukas and some other high-quality stuff.

[donjuan]

If you want to see the depths of an unhealthy obsession with this piece and the different recordings on piano, plus notes on my own workings of a piano arrangement, check out my livejournal dedicated exclusively to it.
https://op14.livejournal.com/
if you start from the earliest entry it's more interesting, I guess.

holy ^%# daniel!  I had no idea..

[arensky]

Excellent. You never play badly, do you? 

[electrafingers]

I don't like Petrov's recording. He uses too little pedal and his sound is pretty dry. It bothers me how much credit he takes for the transcription ("Transcribed by Nikolai Petrov based on the Franz Liszt transcription") when it really is virtually all Liszt. Saying that the transcription is 5% Petrov is being generous.

find Duchable's recording, the CD set also includes the sonata by Paul Dukas and some other high-quality stuff.

Ok, I'll try to find Duchable's recording then.
What about parts I can improve?

[umpirevenkat]

Giovanni Bellucci has recorded it as well.

[liszt1022]

Giovanni Bellucci has recorded it as well.

hey thanks! I'm in process of ordering it now. It was just released December of last year, so I don't feel too bad about not knowing about it yet.

my complete collection is going to be more complete now!

as for the pianist, he's got many good reviews for his live performances of the work. so I'm excited.

[umpirevenkat]

Yeah I saw him play it last year in Sydney, was amazing.  His variation in tone colour was special, especially the extremes in pianissimo he reached while playing some of the most technically demanding material was very impressive. 

[peterlgm]

Hello, remarkable performance.
I am a DMA student at James Madison University, and I am planning to present a lecture recital on the transcription. I will be playing movements 1, 2, and 4. Do you know how I can get hold of the music score besides the Petrucci library? About your changes on the idee fixe, did you write it down? If you did, I would love to have it, and I would give full credit to your name. Thanks for posting this information, even though it has been almost two years ago.

[perfect_pitch]

The 4th movement would be good... but the one that's always gripped me is the 5th movement - especially the ending... It's just so monumental   

[liszt1022]

Hello, remarkable performance.
I am a DMA student at James Madison University, and I am planning to present a lecture recital on the transcription. I will be playing movements 1, 2, and 4. Do you know how I can get hold of the music score besides the Petrucci library? About your changes on the idee fixe, did you write it down? If you did, I would love to have it, and I would give full credit to your name. Thanks for posting this information, even though it has been almost two years ago.

Good luck and please post recordings!
I have the music score via Edito Musica Budapest, it's out of print and expensive. If you have a little time to wait, Dover is finally publishing the Liszt transcription in February.
https://www.amazon.com/Berliozs-Symphonie-Fantastique-Solo-Piano/dp/0486477614/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I10HV1HJQ1EN42&colid=31J1XKF3ZPYJ8

(and the EMB book: )
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Transcriptions-I-II-16/2014484


As an extra note, there's a two-piano arrangement of the entire symphony floating around the Internet somewhere. I might be able to track it down if you think it'd be helpful.
Also I've done extensive studying on this transcription, if you need any help with research or materials let me know!

Edit: JMU huh? I was piano at VCU. Maybe I'll stop by your lecture! Keep me posted.