Liszt's unpublished Vor hundert Jahren (preliminary score)

[monju]

Hi all!

"A hundred years ago" is a collection of incidental music composed by Liszt for the 1859 Schillerfest, performed in Weimar. The play was written by Friedrich Halm, and Liszt composed the music. 2-3 performances were held and the work was favorably received by audiences and critics of the time. Plans for publication were made, but for some unknown reason never happened.

Library of Paris has Liszt's autograph available at their website. It's lacking many details like accents, tempo markings etc, but I reconstructed a preliminary version of the score from it.

This edition is based solely on the autograph score so it's by no means definitive. There are two other sources to consider: GSA in Weimar (partitura and orch parts used at the performance) and Budapest (partitura intended for the copyist).

It was a fun exercise to jot down Liszt's handwriting. The musical sections are short and often superficial, and the play itself (also with its political context) is not easily approachable today. Nevertheless, it's definitely an interesting collection of melodies and ideas, occupying an unique niche in all of Liszt's output of music.

I uploaded a midi version of all the parts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4_uZ9B7PqI

-Tuomas Palojärvi


EDIT: Edited for clarity and added youtube link.