Fingering in Liszt Sonata Passage

[jbb]

I think anyone studying this piece will have a different section that is most difficult for him or her.  For me, I found the alternating arpeggio section beginning at m. 40 to be elusive in terms of the left hand.  I see several alternatives for the fingering:

   E D B G E D B G E (or B A F# D B A F# D B)
   1 2 3 5 1 2 3 5 3
   1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 3

or, take the first E with the RH chord (BGE played with 542), then play the D with the thumb of the right hand and the LH arpeggio as:

   B G E D B G E
   1 2 4 1 2 4 5

I find the first (1235) difficult because my pinky is somewhat short, the second a bit of an uncomfortable stretch (particularly for the second arpeggio) and the last the most comfortable but am concerned with the break in the RH. 

I'm curious as to what people here who mastered this passage have used.

I can offer the hint that in the passage that follows beginning at m. 51, it's much easier (at least for me, to get all the notes to sound consistently) to take the first note of each group of eight RH notes with the left hand.

[franzliszt2]

I use 123512345 and it works fine. For the stretch on the 2nd half, you have to let the arm and wrist carry the hand over....so there is in fact very little stretch if you do this correctly. You just stay on top of the keys and go over like an arch. You get more power this way, which is what you need as you use 45 of the LH.

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But if you take the RH E's with the LH in the next passage you break the legato between the voices in the LH. This cannot be done, it must be legato, as you have to get the RH really clean and not heavily pedalled.

Just finger the RH 1 2 3 5 4 1 2 3 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 etc.....The 5 over 5 may seem strange, but it works perfectly. If you have studied op10no2 Chopin, this fingering is not a problem at all. This is a hard passage, and takes some time to master. Practice hands seperatly a lot, and look for the most efficient movements.

If you try to play these first few pages with only the fingers, you will fail miserably. It is very stretchy, and has a lot of big arpeggios that cannot be played legato, but must be played legato.

The section I find most difficult in this piece are the 8 bars before the presto near the end. They require a lot of power, especially in the LH, and it is very fast, so you don't have much time to get to the bottom of the key. Then when you do generate the power to do it, you have the presto and the prestissimo to play, which is really tiring after 27 minutes or whatever of playing before! This ocatave passage only becomes really hard when you play the whole thing through under pressure. It is hard to begin with....but if you are playing this piece and plan to perform it, I highly recommend you play this passage everyday for some time, just to build up the strength. Especially the LH octaves.

[jbb]

Thanks.  It's possible your 1 2 3 5 1 2 3 4 5 works for you better than it does for me because of your hand (my pinky is rather short).  My comment about taking the first note of each eight with the LH applied to the part beginning at m. 50, not the section you refer to...

[franzliszt2]

Yeh I suppose, my 5th finger is quite big, and the stretch between my 4th and 5th finger is slightly abnormal because I did a lot of stretcing excerises.