Liszt VIER KLEINE KLAVIERSTUCKE #2(1865)

[fbt]

I find these short pieces by Liszt in old age interesting. Any coments appreciated

[birba]

Very beautiful.  Thanks for posting!  I don't know these pieces but I followed along with the music from IMSLP - that is such a great site! - Check the second page in the left hand the 2nd and 6th measure has a D-flat.  It really makes a difference.  I especially like the way you played those ascending-descending right hand octaves towards the end.  Were you the one that posted another one of these pieces?   A more obscure one?  at any rate I enjoyed listening to this!

[birba]

No, I remember now the other one.  I was confusing it with the lugubre gondola - a REALLY obscure work!  How about posting the other two in the group?

[fbt]

Thank you birba for your coments. that was such a stupid mistake with the Db I think  I'll

record it again and try to get the right notes!

[rachfan]

Hi fbt,

What a lovely piece, and you played it very convincingly.  I really enjoyed listening.

Yes there are some real surprises in Liszt's "late works".  Few know, for example, that the Annees de Pelerinage, Third Year, was actually comprised of late works composed decades after the earlier volumes subtitled "Suisse" and "Italie".  For example, in the Third Year we find his incredibly beautiful "Les jeux d'eau a la Villa D'Este", the impressionistic precursor to Ravel's own "Jeux D'Eau".  To be objective though, some of the late works are not considered among the better or best of Liszt's oeuvre.  So as one delves into that part of Liszt's piano literature, where there are jewels and also pieces of coal present, one has to evaluate and make choices.  I think this "Vier Kleine Klavierstucke" was well worth learning. And being an obscure piece, so much the better.

One of the things I hear in this recording are the shifting tonal centers that became the hallmark of Faure's musical idiom.  I'm thinking that Liszt, the older of the two gentlemen and the more seasoned and accomplished composer, might have influenced Faure by the likes of pieces such as the one you present here.  Perhaps Liszt should be seen as straddling Romanticism and the beginnings of Late Romanticism too.

Thanks for sharing your recording!