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Topic: Have you heard the Beethoven / Liszt Symphonies (Transcriptions)  (Read 4040 times)

Offline Alfonso Van Worden

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 :o :o :o :o :o I didnīt know that someone could play these pieces???????

Cyprien Katsaris recording is amazing!!!!!!! :o :o :o
Music should not be "Ur-text" , it should be "Ur-spirit"            
                                         -Dinu Lipatti

Offline presto agitato

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Cyprien Katsaris recording is amazing!!!!!!! :o :o :o

Yes it is. Much much better than Gloud recording.
The masterpiece tell the performer what to do, and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like, or the cocomposer what he ought to have composed.

--Alfred Brendel--

Offline BoliverAllmon

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I personally don't like the transcriptions. They are very difficult indeed, but they just miss something compared to the real deal.

boliver

Offline SteinwayTony

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Nope.  What's a symphony?  What's a Liszt?

Offline Regulus Medtner

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Leslie Howard has recorded them as well.

Offline BoliverAllmon

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Leslie Howard has recorded them as well.

as has biret

Offline liszt1022

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These have been recorded many times. I'd say that out of all that I've heard, the Naxos recordings are your best bet. The tempi are all up there, the playing, especially on the 6th symphony, is orchestral. Leslie Howard's 9th Symphony is almost worth buying the whole set for. For everything Gould did well, he played the Symphonies too slow.

Offline hodi

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i have them, but i think liszt did too much useless work... it sounds BAD on the piano.. symphony is for the orchestra.. keep it like that.

Offline jcromp78

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I have most of the Scherbakov recordings and they are AMAZING! Especially the 9th in his version is monumental. I would like to hear Katsaris's 9th sometime. I have heard great things about it.

Offline pseudopianist

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as has biret

Biret <3

Lets not forget that she has downloadable recordings on her website. :)
Whisky and Messiaen

Offline argerich_smitten

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Quote
i have them, but i think liszt did too much useless work... it sounds BAD on the piano.. symphony is for the orchestra.. keep it like that.

Liszt was an orchestral composer, almost all of his piano works reflect his orchestral ideas.  This is why his pieces can be so effectively orchestrated, and also why his orchestral transcriptions pretty much outstrip everybody elses.  I don't think it's fair to say 'symphony is for the orchestra', since many of liszt's works were in fact symphonic works for the piano. 

Offline thierry13

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Liszt WAS a pianist and allmost one of the greatest of all times  :o! How can you say he was only an orchestral composer !! In fact, I heard he transcribed them for the people who can't go see orchestras and operas, so he could play them on piano what they could hear in an opera/ orchestral performance. So the ones who say :  "symphonies are bad at the piano why liszt transcribed them they should be played by orchestras ! " , well now you have the answer why liszt transcribed them, it's not to make it sound better than an orchestra, it's to make ear symphonies to people who can't go see orchestras !

Offline argerich_smitten

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Quote
Liszt WAS a pianist and allmost one of the greatest of all times  ! How can you say he was only an orchestral composer !!

Sorry for not being clear enough.  I am saying Liszt is an orchestral composer, just like  one would  say chopin is an operatic composer.  Of course chopin didn't spend his life cranking out operas... his writing is operatic because there is usually one voice (a soloist opera singer) and a usually lighter accompanyment part in the left hand, then another voice often enters, and so on.  Liszt's writing has orchestral like qualities; it is often fairly evident which instrument in the orchestra he was 'immitating' on the piano.  Many of the grand chords that scatter his music are the powerful string sections in the orchestra, then maybe there are low tremolos in the left hand (timpani) and then everything drops back for a very free lyrical line in the upper register (flute solo).  In the hungarian rhapsodies, there will often be rapid light passages, usually containing repeated notes (here he is 'imitating' the chimbilum [and I don't know how it's spelled!!]).   
I hope that clears things up a little?

Offline Alfonso Van Worden

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Does anyone has a link where I can get information about Howardīs recording?

(I also have Gouldīs recording and it is extremely beautifull, but the tempo is extremely slow... I agree).

I didnīt know about Biretīs recording!!!
Music should not be "Ur-text" , it should be "Ur-spirit"            
                                         -Dinu Lipatti
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