New Liszt Piece

[thepianolad]

Hi,

I need to choose a third piece for my exam which will be Liszt. I'm considering whether I should do the following:

- Liebestraume 3
- Widmung (Schumman transcription)
- Un Sospiro concert etude
- Gnomenreigen concert etude

The other two pieces will be Beethoven's Pathetique sonata 1st movement and either a Schubert impromptu or rustle of spring.
If I could have some input on which I should do as my third piece, that would be much appreciated, thanks.

[lelle]

None of them are a bad choice. It depends on how much you time you have to learn the piece, your technical ability, what your strengths are as a musician, which piece you like the most. So it's hard to say as an external person, really.

[arda152]

Think about creating a story with the tonality:

Beethoven Pathetique first movement. Dramatic and dark ending. Then comes the 3rd Liebestraum. A-flat major (just like the second movement of Pathetique, so Beethoven would be happy )

The final chord of Liszt is a very soft A-flat major sound, and then the reality hits us. 1. Impromptu in C minor from Schubert. We wake up with the surprising G octave of the impromptu and it takes us back to c minor for a dramatic finish.

I think you can create a nice effect this way. It feels like a single piece. What do you think?

[nightwindsonata]

I agree with arda, I think the Liebestraum fits extremely well into the program, especially as a second part. Remember that there are also two other Liebestrams that don't get played nearly as often!!! I would also recommend taking a look at some of the pieces from the second Years of Pilgrimage book, some of them are really beautiful and not played as much as the Liebestraum--for instance take a look at the Sonnets de Petrarcha (but stay far away from the Dante Sonata, that one would not fit in your program at all).

[fftransform]

The Liebestraume is substantially easier than the others, just play that one if you can actually use it.  No reason to make exams harder on yourself than they have to be.