Everest: Liszt Transcendental Etudes

[pianistavt]

What are your thoughts about Liszt's Transcendental Etudes?  It seems a lot of aspiring pianists put these on a pedestal - a mountain top to conquer.
Do you listen to them?
Do you have a goal to master one or a few of them?
If you play/practice them, what do you enjoy about them?

I'm asking out of curiosity - I was enthralled with them when I first heard them at the age of 17/18, listened to them thoroughly (Lazar Berman).  Since then I haven't paid much attention to them.  I don't have a goal to learn any of them.

[lelle]

I think they're OK. The ones I have worked on (Preludio, Wilde Jagd, Mazeppa) are more fun to play than they are to listen to IMO. But I feel like that about a lot of the virtuoso Liszt stuff. I might study a few more eventually but I enjoy the Chopin Etudes a lot more as pieces of music.

I would say I very rarely listen to the Transcendental Etudes. It would be hard for me to sit through the whole set in one listen. They were much more exciting when I was in my teens/early 20s: I think it's common that flashy pianistic firework stuff appeals more to that age group.

[thorn]

I'm the opposite of lelle. I find the Transcendentals great pieces of music and the Chopin Etudes empty virtuosity. I also find the Paganinis empty virtuosity so it's not about preferring one composer to the other.

I've played Paysage, Harmonies du soir and Chasse-neige. I don't really play Paysage any more but sometimes get Hds and C-n out for fun (haven't played them in public for 10 years, they'd need work!)

[roboute guilliman cfa]

My goal is to learn the set. I've learned so many small details behind fingering and technique. For example, the jump in Mazeppa bar 22 into a tenth in the left hand. The fingering of the 3 notes immediately preceding this should be 121. 123 makes for a smaller jump for the thumb but it is actually more uncomfortable and inconsistent. 121 is easier despite the bigger jump for the thumb.

Hitting the left hand fast tenths in no 2 also trains the whole arm movement, to find the edge of the keys fast, and helped me get a lot more comfortable with 9ths and 10ths.

A lot of quartal movement in no 2 and no 4, a lot of chromatic pedal point writing. A lot more distance has to be covering in the span of a 16th note than I've seen in other music. In no 6 and 8 the parts where you have the double note embedded into/surrounded by two single notes are quite challenging.

I don't really listen to Ricordanza. I think this one has the least to offer technically and I think is probably the least listened of all of them. Vadym Kholodenko skipped this one when he won the Van Cliburn competition and I really suspect people only learn this one to complete the set. 10 is kind of superficial, I don't even find it that exciting to play. This one is the easiest of the 'hard ones', and seems to get cherrypicked a lot as the go-to Liszt t. etude for those that don't want to learn the other ones, especially by amateurs on youtube. 10 is the only one I can find performances by Yundi Li, Kate Liu, Seong-Jin Cho, a few others. I know they can learn the others easily, but nonetheless it's a perfect flashy piece to pick up quickly.

It does feel like most modern performances set the bar very conservative. I've played 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 up to speed now, still working on 5, haven't done much on 11 or 12 yet. I think 4's middle section is misunderstood and it takes another level of intensity of practice and concentration to figure out how to play that section like Emil von sauer. Similarly no 2 is not very interesting to me played at 2 min 20 sec, 30 sec, so you have to learn it at Ovchinnikov tempo to really feel like you learned a lot technically from this piece.

However, all the left hand difficulty is extremely lopsided towards jumps, (the big intervals in 2, 4, the fast jumps in 5, , with a little bit of chromatic pedal point work in No 4, maybe octaves if that doesn't come naturally to you, a little bit of the descending pattern of alternating double note-then-single-note in no 10. None of these etudes' left hands are close to the Godowsky studies on op 10 no 5, 7, 12, or Petrushka, for instance. So it really opens the eyes as to how the Liszt etudes are still not that close to being the Everest of piano technique.

I would get the Henle but reference the Emil von sauer edition on IMSLP to experiment with fingerings. Some innocuous or obvious thing can make a big difference.

[transitional]

Sorry to say, I'm with lelle on this. They're flashy, and that's all there is to them. But they might just not be for me, and I think if people want to work on the Transcendentals, it's fine if for their musical qualities. If you just want to improve your technique, there are many, many pieces for that. And I would also call the Liszt-Beethoven symphonies "Everest," not the Transcendentals. To me, there really is no "ultimate goal," you just keep having fun with more and more new pieces. And don't impose the "teens like flashy things" stereotypes more. I'm 15 and am really, really, really annoyed with them, would take Schubert any day to Liszt.

Don't want to offend anyone, as always. I enjoy a good Liszt from time to time (such as the Annees de Pelerinage)

[wildman]

I intend to play them all...one day. 

Currently learning the first, easier version (Etudes in 12 Exercises).

I disagree about Ricordanza. I grew up listening to it as a teen (Arrau's recording) and it has become essentially favourite piano piece to listen to. Today I play it often (but struggle in the cadenza section).

I believe the Transcendental Studies to be a pinnacle of 19th century music and perhaps the greatest set of études of that century for the piano (with tough competition from Chopin and Alkan). They are both technical and musical masterpieces. I also use them to prove that Liszt was already mature as a young composer (given that the earlier version was written in 1837 when he was 26).

[thorn]

I also disagree about Ricordanza. The main melody is unchanged from the 1826 version, it's crazy to think he wrote something so beautiful at 14/15.

[lelle]

I'm the opposite of lelle. I find the Transcendentals great pieces of music and the Chopin Etudes empty virtuosity. I also find the Paganinis empty virtuosity so it's not about preferring one composer to the other.

I've played Paysage, Harmonies du soir and Chasse-neige. I don't really play Paysage any more but sometimes get Hds and C-n out for fun (haven't played them in public for 10 years, they'd need work!)

It's funny how people are different

I agree in a sense that some Chopin etudes are mainly about the technical problem at hand. But what I love about them is how creatively he goes about it with the patterns, sounds, textures, and harmonic progressions. There is not one note I would add or remove to any of them, they're all just very well crafted and "just right". And to me, most of them are emotionally charged little character pieces, so it's not just empty virtuosity.

I think the transcendentals have cool ideas, they're just too long and heavy for my taste. Liszt writes that big, orchestral sound, but I prefer the lighter textures and shorter durations of Chopin.

[ravelfan07]

What are your thoughts about Liszt's Transcendental Etudes?  It seems a lot of aspiring pianists put these on a pedestal - a mountain top to conquer.
Do you listen to them?
Do you have a goal to master one or a few of them?
If you play/practice them, what do you enjoy about them?

I'm asking out of curiosity - I was enthralled with them when I first heard them at the age of 17/18, listened to them thoroughly (Lazar Berman).  Since then I haven't paid much attention to them.  I don't have a goal to learn any of them.

Imo a lot of them a pretty good, but overrated
Wilde Jagd and Mazeppa are the best one, followed somewhat distantly by Feux Follets and Harmonies du Soir
All the other ones are just ok, they are hard, but from a musical standpoint, just ok.

[ravelfan07]

Imo a lot of them a pretty good, but overrated
Wilde Jagd and Mazeppa are the best one, followed somewhat distantly by Feux Follets and Harmonies du Soir
All the other ones are just ok, they are hard, but from a musical standpoint, just ok.

Except Paysage and preludio, definitely the easier ones

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Except Paysage and preludio, definitely the easier ones

Just because they're easier doesn't mean they're easy.
I know for a fact that Preludio (the easiest) is much more difficult than Chopin's FI, and basically any piece I've played so far.

[ravelfan07]

Just because they're easier doesn't mean they're easy.
I know for a fact that Preludio (the easiest) is much more difficult than Chopin's FI, and basically any piece I've played so far.

Never said they were easy themselves, just said they were easier