Liszt Mazeppa

[IgnazPaderewski]

Can anyone here play this blasted piece? I spent two weeks wrestling with the damn thing, and it is so tiring that I am completely exhausted by the last variation. Also, does anyone one know its ancestors (Op.1 no.4, the 4th of the Douze Grandes Etudes and a separate intermediate version). Definitely the hardest of the (1851) transcendentals (including Feux Follets). Has anybody seen Boris Berezovsky's dvd performance of this? I watched it with total glee because, as punishment for not using Liszt's fingering, he has the most amazing memory lapse (turning back to the beginning) and finishes up the section with an F natural in the base of a D major chord.

[ax166]

Can u tell me how to play the second line where there are three (sempre fortissimo e con strepito)? left hand? right? both?? what fingering? thanks

[ted]

Sorry to bring this old post back but I've been on holiday and I'm browsing through. Nobody seems to have answered ax166.

In the first variation, play all the accompanying pairs of double notes left-right-left. In the second variation play them left-right. The main things are the melody and the rhythm though. Also, the octave passages and the initial scale need some sort of musical feeling put into them (accents in interesting places) or else the whole thing becomes a mechanical tour de force.

[trunks]

Hi IgnazPaderewski,

Practice the piece phrase by phrase, variation by variation, using Liszt's 24-24 . . . fingering if you feel you can handle it. It adds more power and fire to the galloping horse behind Mazeppa's story. Otherwise many people adopt the facilitated 24-13(LH), 13-24(RH), 24-13(LH crossing over RH) approach, which is still quite difficult.

By all mean, master both sets of fingerings.
And curiously how many people stick to the Liszt fingering?

[IgnazPaderewski]

Even that blasphemer Emil von Sauer insists that we use Liszts fingering, so I guess we should use it  

[comme_le_vent]

Even that blasphemer Emil von Sauer insists that we use Liszts fingering, so I guess we should use it  

quite

but he also wrote a kick ass piano concerto.

[DarkWind]

Oddly enough, I find Liszt's fingering twice as easy as the usual "easier" ones. Must be cause the fingers do a kind of slide. But eh, thats just me.

[cz4p32]

I see i'm bringing back an old topic here, but I agree to use Liszt's fingering.  I am slowly learning this piece and have no trouble with 2-4. 2-4.  Even for me, being an amature, my most difficult piece being Chopin's Bb minor scherzo and Op 1 Cminor Rondo, I feel afte working on TE 4 for about a month that it is possible to learn.  May take a year, but I think I can do it.

[lostinidlewonder]

Anyone can play the notes, its the stupid speed of them. There is no trick to it. I guess play it ppp all the times. At least you wont get exhausted and afterall its all about mastering that jumping touch/flow.

[chromatickler]

apparently, this piece wuz named aftah a legendary pregnant cat.

 

[Cadenza_Ad_Libitum]

I see i'm bringing back an old topic here, but I agree to use Liszt's fingering.  I am slowly learning this piece and have no trouble with 2-4. 2-4.  Even for me, being an amature, my most difficult piece being Chopin's Bb minor scherzo and Op 1 Cminor Rondo, I feel afte working on TE 4 for about a month that it is possible to learn.  May take a year, but I think I can do it.

Same here. I find that scherzo more difficult than Mazeppa especially the middle part where the super fast delicate passages (RH). I can still not pull it off correctly.

As for Mazeppa, I first learnt the "easier" fingerings for those parts, because at the time I thought it should be played fast to sound alright. But then after I heard Arrau's recording, I began learning Liszt's fingering and it isn't so difficult after all. The music sound better at Arrau's tempi.

It is my favourite piece of my less-than-10-short-piece repertoire. 

[maxy]

Cheating is bad! 2-4/2-4 is the way to go!
Stamina problem?  Don't hammer it all.
FF does not mean all single notes should be FF.  It means the overall should sound FF.

[dnephi]

If you read all three prior editions, they read "staccatissimo."  In other words, make them powerful little chords.  Your hand should be "bouncing," kind of like octave bouncing.

[tompilk]

quite

but he also wrote a kick ass piano concerto.

yes better than rach 2 iMHO

Where is this memory lapse? I keep watching the vid and fail to notice it 
I do know the piece off by heart (not to play of course!)... but i never see it!
Tom

[tompilk]

ah, is it about 3:30 in where the big octaves come down and edge their way up to the really high one, then return the the rampant jumpy chase part?
Sory about the lack of musical vocab
Tom

[ramseytheii]

ah, is it about 3:30 in where the big octaves come down and edge their way up to the really high one, then return the the rampant jumpy chase part?
Sory about the lack of musical vocab
Tom

\

He has a tense but kind of hilarious memory lapse right near the end, before the music gets slow, at a descending sequence of diminished seventh chords.  You can actually see it in his hands, they don't know exactly where to go.  One of the great memory lapses recorded for posterity!

The other great recorded mistake, perhaps not a lapse, is in Lipatti's final concert, in the Schubert E-flat Impromptu.  It's in the third section if I am not mistaken, I guess the recapitulation section, and at one point, for a splint second, it seems he is going to turn in the wrong direction, to play a wrong note, or perhaps even forget what was next.  Then like a bicycler that tilts and then quickly gains control he gets right on.  It's the most thrilling mistake I have ever heard!

Walter Ramsey