Liszt-Beethoven Symphony No. 9

[pianodude1]

i can't find the actual arrangement anywhere, not even imslp. it only has a "Choral" version.

[brogers70]

Here it is.

https://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/files/imglnks/usimg/b/b5/IMSLP61527-PMLP03520-Liszt_Musikalische_Werke_4_Band_3_9.pdf

It's true that the vocal parts are shown, but I think the piano part is the complete Liszt transcription and you can just ignore the vocal lines. I've listened to the Katsaris recording and this is what he seems to be playing.

[brogers70]

And here's a recording.

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[musikalischer_wirbelwind_280]

Indeed, that's the piano solo arrangement of the symphony by Liszt. Here's an extract from the introduction by Alan Walker in the 2001 Dover edition that might interest you:

"It was in the Chorale Finale of the Ninth Symphony, however, that even Franz Liszt went down to defeat. He wrote to Breitkopf:

After various endeavors one way and another, I became inevitably and distinctly convinced of the impossibility of making any pianoforte arrangement of the fourth movement for two hands, that could in any way be even approximately effective or satisfactory.

He begged Breitkopf to consider his work of transcription finished with the conclusion of the third movement of the Ninth. Breitkopf refused to be brushed aside, however, and Liszt reluctantly returned to the task. In his letter of compliance, he characteristically fell back on a proverb to express the dilemma facing him: "So often goes the pitcher to water that at last it is filled." It never was quite filled, however. Liszt openly acknowledges his difficulty by printing the choral parts on separate staves above the transcribed orchestral score. While the music is at such times strictly unplayable, deployed as it is across four staves, it has the great advantage of keeping Beethoven's intentions with regard to the chorus absolutely clear."

I also remember reading in the booklet that came with my Katsaris' recording of the symphonies (Teldec) that he (Katsaris) added a few notes here and there that Liszt hadn't considered to write down in his transcriptions; only in certain passages, of course, and only when he felt it helped the music by making it fuller and closer to the orchestral version.

Very best,
And much luck and joy playing those!
M.W.