Customer Reviews

Complete Piano Transcriptions from Wagner's Operas (Dover Music for Piano)

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Wagner has always been one of my favorite composers; his music has such incredibly intense emotional power. These transcriptions by Franz Liszt are the work of genius, in bringing off Wagner's orchestral music on the piano. From the Tannhauser "Abendstern" aria to the Tannhauser overture to the Rienzi fantasy to the Walhall transcription, this is great music displaying Wagner's harmonic and melodic genius and Liszt's brilliant pianistic ability.

There are a number of textual mistakes that I've noted in the text, however (actually, quite a few mistakes); but it's worth putting up with to get this edition. You'd have a hard time of finding these pieces in any other edition.

Extremely difficult music, though (even for Liszt) - not for the faint of heart or fingers.

in the sense that these are liszt/s transcriptions of wagner/s music (well, sorta), they can not be anything but, on the one hand, great, for wagner/s music, and, on the other, impossible to play by anyone but liszt. buying this to learn to play liszt/s transcriptions is, for *most* of us, a lesson in futility - no less funny than laughing while falling off the piano bench when looking at ives concord sonata. but that/s not quite why i bought it (altho i laugh everytime i set down at the keys). the theory was to do a bit of orchestration of liszts transcriptions thru my keyboard running thru my imac & garageband (w/the symphony package) and seeing if anything good turns out. can/t say anything yet. but this is a great book for working with on that. wish there was an equivalent cd !