Customer Reviews

Complete Etudes for Solo Piano, Series II: Including the Paganini Etudes and Concert Etudes (Dover Music for Piano)

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The so good edition of the entire piano music of Franz Liszt ( it's not really complete, sadly) made by the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni. It's not easy to find this edition. Dover offers just the complete etudes(in two volumes). As usual for Dover, not first quality printing, but for this price it's a bargain and a good complement for the Budapest edition.

This book is a part of 2-book set. Both books are must-haves for advanced pianists. The quoality of printing is good. Notes are clear. Transcendental etudes are in book 1 and Paganini Etudes are in book 2. Do not hesitate to buy this book if you are fond of Liszt. You must be an advanced pianist to be able to play most pieces in the book.

This edition of Liszt Etudes is terrific. I loved that it was under $20. It came highly recommended by my teacher.

At first I was disappointed having to purchase this, as I thought I already had most of these works in my private library. I must have given them away. I confess that I never liked Liszt much. However, he occasionally hit the mark and left us some wonderful piano music.

I have been designing a recital which contains pieces only in A minor. The recital had a "hole" in it - and I just couldn't find the right piece to fill it. It's been more than 30 years since I heard the Paganini Etudes and thought that #6 would be just the thing. Wrong. Having sightread through it, it failed to captivate my attention at all - I found it rather banal, as I do most Liszt. And a funny thing, too; with few exceptions, those pieces of Liszt I like best are those based on other composer's works: the waltz from Gounod's Faust, the Reminiscence de Norma, the Skater's Waltz from Meyerbeer's Le Prophete, the Polonaise from Tschaikowsky's Eugene Onegin, etc . . . I have always had the impression that Liszt's compositions, like his playing, were often designed to make women faint and make men's hair stand on end. It apparently worked and left quite a lasting impression.

The score does have its historical benefits. Since it contains different versions of the Paganini Etudes as well as alternate versions of Ab Irato, it clearly shows Liszt was never quite satisfied with his work and revised often. Curiosly enough, this was a hallmark in his playing. Ferdinand Hiller mentioned this to Mendelssohn, telling him that if he heard Liszt read through his Concerto in g minor again, he wouldn't recognise it. Alkan, too noted this, having mentioned to Hiller that a performance by Liszt of an "air varié" was "par trop molestant de voir" - he just couldn't leave anything alone. Remember that the Transcendental Etudes also went through this process - three times, if memory serves.

This has been mentioned before, but speaking of Alkan, the man that Liszt said had the finest, most perfect technique he had ever known, the man that Liszt did not like to perform before as he unnerved him, the man that Liszt catagorically refused to compete against, should a competition be established between them (an indication to me that he knew he'd lose) - Alkan's piano works show no such re-workings.

The volume contains the Trois Grandes Etudes. Worth noting here is that Liszt, as late as the 1880s, was still offering his students suggestions for improvised cadenzas at the fermatas in Un Sospiro. These are not contained in this volume. Pity, really.

I'll not return the score, as it does have one of those pieces I do adore and had apparently given away: Gnomenreigen. But as that is not a pianistic priority for me at the moment, this score is going onto the shelf to collect dust.