Rossini - Liszt, William Tel Overture Piano Solo Paraphrase

[Sydney]

Are there any recordings of piano solo for Rossini-Liszt William Tel Overture?
I tried to find with internet but couldn't get it...

[julie391]

the naxos recording is good, just buy it

cziffra has also recorded an amazing improvisation based on this piece, check that out too

[Goldberg]

Yeah, Cziffra's transcription is mind-blowing. I own the sheet music for it and I must say it is quite possibly the most challenging piece of music I've ever layed eyes on (and I've seen quite a lot of music...."within reason," that is). Its technical difficulty is naturally not any judge of overall quality, but still if you look at it with a showpiece mindset it is simply amazing. And, beyond all of that, it IS highly effective musically. The final section (the really famous part) could easily give the sensation of multiple pianists if played well.

[julie391]

i havent seen the score - but i cant hear why its so difficult - beyond the obvious velocity and dexterity required

what puts it beyond godowsky, ligeti and sorabji?

[donjuan]

i havent seen the score - but i cant hear why its so difficult - beyond the obvious velocity and dexterity required

what puts it beyond godowsky, ligeti and sorabji?

You need physical endurance to make it through the Liszt transcription of the william tell overture. (oh and BTW that Gekic recording from the naxos recording IS excellent)  Liszt was very young when he wrote it, so it tends to be a little awkward for the hands in terms of limiting the choices of fingering in a number of places.  It is written very much in the style of an orchestral score, so trying to perform it is like trying to be a conductor that has to play all the instruments at once..

Cziffra's william tell overture is SO COOL!!!!!  The whole thing is pretty much a crazy cadenza

donjuan

[Goldberg]

I was careful to say the phrase "within reason" when discussing the difficulty of Cziffra's transcription----in other words I was trying to steer clear of Sorabji and some of the extraordinary Godowsky and Ligeti compositions. That said, Cziffra's piece is also complicated beyond what meets the ear (at least MY ear) due to occassionally convoluted crossrythms in extreme subdivisions and al most everything is played with full chords or standard three-note chords (and chord clusters) as opposed to octaves or double note intervals. Those demands transcend the typical dexterity issues in my opinion. You REALLY have to have a solid technique before going into that sort of thing. The Godowsky etudes are at a similar degree of difficulty but even those are straightforward enough to where they make sense on paper even if they turn out to be quite hard on the keyboard (I don't have enough experience to fully compare them to Cziffra's transcriptions, but I have messed around with several Godowsky etudes). Ligeti's another story, though. But with the transcriptions, one has to realise that he/she is essentially playing another man's *improvisation* which is no small task in itself. Particularly if the man who improvised the piece has a transcendental technique which puts to shame an overwhelming majority of professional pianists.

[xvimbi]

Are there any recordings of piano solo for Rossini-Liszt William Tel Overture?
I tried to find with internet but couldn't get it...

A while ago, I bought a CD from Amazon called "Rossini: Piano Music" (Classical Express, Catalog: #3957102). Yes, indeed, Rossini wrote some piano music... The last piece is the Liszt transcription, which of course, he didn't write, but it's on there nevertheless. The pianist is Frederic Chiu. It's fairly well done, although the overall technical quality of the CD is a bit on the weak side.

[julie391]

goldberg, was this recording an improvisation?

is the score a composition or merely a transcription of the improvisation?

[Goldberg]

Yes, the majority of the transcriptions were at one time improvisations. Cziffra had made a bunch of tapes of himself improvising when he was quite young (I dunno, 20 or 30 or something) and at some point later in his life, his son Cziffra Jr. suggested that they listen to the tapes and write the music down. At first, Cziffra didn't want to go with it but they worked steadily and progressed over a couple of years (or maybe just months, I'm not sure) by slowing the tapes down to ridiculously slow speeds and then copying down each note by ear, including the chords and clusters, and while staying faithful to the rythms and cross-ryhtms. After the pieces were written down, Cziffra went in and editted some to clean up any loose ends, and then sent them to be published as his transcriptions. In the process, I imagine he also *composed* some of the transcriptions as well, but I don't know enough to say specifically which ones he improvised and which ones he didn't. Most likely, he had improvised them several times before writing them down, sort of like how Horowitz would play the Carmen Variations in concert without having it physically written down and each time was a little different.

Though I am 85-90% certain that his William Tell Overture came about that way. I KNOW that's how his Roumanian Fantasy was born, and if you've ever seen the score/heard that you know it's quite a tricky and complex one.

[julie391]

thanks for the info, i have read similar stuff before

whilst i agree the dexterity required is extreme, and the music is difficult

i still dont think it is as technically difficult and contrapuntally complex as the others i mentioned

but i am seeing some of your point