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This second collection of Liszt’s tributes to the genius of Schubert is largely confined to song transcriptions, and especially to the sets of pieces based on the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise and the posthumously assembled Schwanengesang.
Liszt’s methods and intentions in his Schubert song transcriptions vary quite broadly. There are some simple arrangements, in which vocal line and accompaniment are wedded comfortably without much in the way of decoration. Then there are works where the first verse of a song is given unembroidered, but what amounts to a set of variations follows, and oft-times the variation is predicated by the text of the song. (Liszt’s number of variations is sometimes greater or fewer than the number of verses in Schubert’s songs, however.) Finally there is a group of very freely treated songs where the transcription endeavours to give full expression to the ideas behind the song as well as the musical text itself. This last phenomenon is the one which has caused most criticism historically, and therefore warrants a little explanation.

There is no doubt that simply adding the vocal line to the existing accompaniment does not often make a meaningful transcription, even though it might make a reasonable documentary account of the original notes. Just as in his transcriptions of orchestral music by Beethoven, Berlioz or Wagner, Liszt often conveys a precision of sound and spirit by his conscious avoidance of literal representation of the notes, so with the song transcriptions does he often compensate for the sound of a great singer in full flight in response to both words and music by adopting an apparently new musical text. Sometimes the tempo of a transcription, because of the variations in the verses, may seem slightly different from customary usage, but Liszt’s interpretations may also reveal to us a different attitude and tradition towards tempo which might otherwise not have survived. Of course, for much of the museum-culture-minded twentieth century, what were perceived as Liszt’s gross liberties with the text were sacrilegious, but any careful examination of Liszt’s broader aims shows his comprehensive understanding of Schubert’s idiom.

The Vier geistliche Lieder (‘Four Sacred Songs’) were gathered together by Liszt from two sources: the first three originals were published three years after Schubert’s death, and the fourth was issued in a version with piano by Schubert himself which seems to have escaped the compilers of Grove. (The original Geisterchor did not appear until even after Liszt’s death.) They were published as a set of four, and almost immediately were reissued in a set often with the Sechs geistliche Lieder (Gellert) transcribed from Beethoven (in Volume 15 of this series). Only the first of them is well known in song recitals—Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen, D343a, (‘Litany for All Souls’ Day’) is a requiem prayer which Liszt treats with beautiful simplicity, even in the octave doublings of the second verse. Himmelsfunken, D651 (‘Heaven’s Gleam’) is a simple strophic song in contemplation of heaven, which Liszt arranges as a theme with two variations.

Die Gestirne (‘The Firmament’, D444) is a setting of Klopstock’s paraphrase of Psalm 19 (Vulgate 18), ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’, and Liszt’s response to Schubert and Klopstock is full of thunderous orchestral grandeur. Hymne is actually the Geisterchor (‘Chorus of Spirits’)—one of a group of vocal numbers from the ill-fated incidental music to Rosamunde, D797, which Schubert arranged with piano accompaniment (the original is for chorus with brass) which appeared in 1824 as Opus 25, with this particular piece as No 3. (The title of Schubert’s version with piano is confusing, because ‘Hymne’ applies legitimately to quite a number of Schubert songs and choruses.) The text, a likely candidate for the worst piece of German poetry, is by Wilhelmine von Chézy, and deals with Light living in the Depths and Shining (‘In der Tiefe wohnt das Licht. Licht daß leuchtet …’). Both Schubert and Liszt manage to make something quite beautiful from this tripe.

By 1846 Liszt had probably noticed that his long and complex Mélodies hongroises—his piano solo version of Schubert’s Divertissement à l’hongroise—were not being taken up, except for the central March (see Volume 31). He recast the piece, making trenchant cuts and simplifying a lot of the texture. The new publication bears the German title Schuberts Ungarische Melodien, and adds the legend ‘auf eine neue leichtere Art gesetzt’ (‘arranged in a new easier manner’). Typically, Liszt’s understanding of what an amateur might find easy was compromised by the fact that he himself seemingly found nothing to be difficult. As a result, many passages are well out of the range of domestic music-making. The less weighty effect of this version gained it a brief life in concert, but sadly this version has been out of print for nearly 150 years.

Liszt had already made two transcriptions from Die schöne Müllerin—Trockne Blumen and Ungeduld—when he produced his set of Six Mélodies favorites in 1846, in which the former does not appear and the latter is transcribed anew and in a different key. Liszt makes a palindromic key pattern by setting the pieces in B flat major, G minor, C minor/C major/C minor, G major and B flat major, even though this puts the narrative of the original quite out of order and changes Schubert’s keys for numbers 4 and 6—originally in B major and A major. But the musical argument is transcendent when the text is less germane.

Die schöne Müllerin (‘The Fair Mill-maid’, D795) is far too familiar to require much explanation. Liszt chooses numbers 1, 19, 14, 17, 2 and 7 from the original twenty settings of Wilhelm Müller: Das Wandern (‘Wandering’) is two verses shorter than the song expressing the poet’s joy in tramping about, but is delightfully varied. The conversation about the misery and the happy mystery of love, Der Müller und der Bach (‘The Miller and the Stream’) is extended by an extra variation to the last verse and is one of the finest of all Liszt’s transcriptions, so close does it get to letter and spirit of the song whilst writing inventively and originally at the same time. The two verses of Der Jäger (‘The Huntsman’)—in which the poet asks the hunter to keep away from the stream and shoot only that which frightens his loved one—are given a very sprightly decoration, and are set either side of the transcription of Die böse Farbe (‘The Evil Colour’). This is shorn of its short introduction and coda, but handled very ebulliently, with some treacherous double notes in the right hand to stress the pride and boldness of the lover’s preferred and mocking green.

Wohin? (‘Whither?’) solves the problem of adding the voice to the accompaniment by dividing the babbling brook which has attracted the poet’s attention between the inner fingers of the two hands, and occasionally by letting it wash the melody from above; and Ungeduld (‘Impatience’)—the poet is desperate to proclaim his love to the whole world—is set, like the first song, with one fewer verse than Schubert, in a theme and two variations. (For the later versions of these transcriptions, entitled Müllerlieder, see Volume 33.)

The remaining transcriptions on the first disc are based upon three very familiar songs—Meeresstille (‘Sea Calm’, D216), in which Liszt manages to convey motionless water and dread at the same time with deep tremolos and arpeggios (this is the earlier version of a transcription which was later modified slightly for the collection of twelve transcriptions, S558); Die Forelle (‘The Trout’, D550d), is given in its later, somewhat simplified and totally recast second transcription, still with one extra variation of the melody before the denouement of the poem has the fish hooked. And finally here are Liszt’s last thoughts on Ständchen (‘Leise flehen meine Lieder’) (‘Serenade—Gently imploring go my songs’, D957/4) from Schwanengesang, effectively his fourth version of it—he had first issued a transcription of it long before he set about preparing the whole of the collection, effectively in two complete versions. In his last years he added to the second version a new cadenza at the coda for his student and biographer, Lina Ramann, further underlining the sense of the closing lines: ‘Bebend harr ich dir entgegen! Komm, beglücke mich!’ (‘Trembling, I await your approach! Come, bring me joy!’).

Schwanengesang—Vierzehn Lieder von Franz Schubert is a triumph of the transcriber’s art, which matches in its way the depth and breadth of this wonderful collection of Schubert’s last songs. The originals, D957—seven songs to poems by Rellstab, six to Heine (all composed in August, 1828) and one to Seidl (composed around the same time as the famous Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (‘The Shepherd on the Rock’) in October 1828 and therefore Schubert’s last song for voice and piano)—were collected and published in 1829. Although Schubert did not intend them to form a cycle, they are usually so performed, in a fairly arbitrary order which neatly separates the poets. But there is something uncomfortable about ending with such an un-valedictory piece as Die Taubenpost, especially hard on the heels of Der Doppelgänger, and although Liszt preserves the juxtaposition of these two, he does not hesitate to return to a minor key to complete his cycle, and to choose a different order for the other songs.

Liszt’s pieces correspond to numbers 11, 10, 5, 12, 7, 6, 4, 9, 3, 1, 8, 13, 14 and 2 of the published order of the songs, giving him another interesting key structure of C minor, A flat major, E minor, C major, E flat major, B minor, D minor, B flat minor, B flat major, G major, G minor. B minor, G major and C minor—all Schubert’s original keys. Every transcription has whole passages given in alternative text, thus forming a possible second version of the whole cycle (see Volume 33), but here the main text is given throughout.

The mysterious arpeggios of Die Stadt (‘The Town’) make an excellent and unsettling beginning to Liszt’s cycle, and his interpretation of the second verse (‘Ein feuchter Windzug kräuselt die graue Wasserbahn’—‘A dank breeze ruffles the grey waterway’), reinforces the song’s reference to the lost loved one. Das Fischermädchen (‘The Fisher-maiden’) is a straightforward transcription with an extra final verse mirroring the ‘Ebb’ und Flut’ (‘ebb and flow’) of the text with its delicate fluttering between major and minor. The grief-stricken poet’s Aufenthalt (‘Resting Place’) can only be rushing river, roaring forest or inflexible rock—and Liszt’s response is full of clever word-painting.

Am Meer tells, by the sea in the twilight, of love lost, and of the poet’s being poisoned by the tears which he has drunk away from the hand of the unhappy woman whom he loves. Liszt’s tremolos correspond exactly to Schubert’s and he conjures the mood perfectly. Abschied (‘Farewell’) is a marvellous piece of enforced jollity at parting, brilliantly set by Schubert and well captured by Liszt, who adds his usual musical commentary upon the text to make a lively set of variations with much jumping about in triplets.

In der Ferne (‘Far Away’) describes the bleak, unblessed state of those who abandon what and whom they love to wander unfulfilled, finally revealing that it is the poet himself telling the lover that broke his heart of his decision to flee. Liszt’s mighty transcription, subtitled ‘Lamentation’, pierces the heart of both words and music. In Ständchen Liszt famously permits himself to set the whole of the third and fourth verses of the melody, and the right hand of the accompaniment, in canon, without doing any damage thereby. Liszt removes the last chord in his otherwise very straightforward transcription of Ihr Bild (‘Her Portrait’)—a dream that a picture of the poet’s lost lover came to life—in order to proceed directly to Frühlingssehnsucht (‘Longing in Spring’) in which Liszt reflects the poet’s impatience for love in the spring with reckless hand-crossing and leaps across the keyboard.

Liebesbotschaft (‘Message of Love’) is one of the happier songs of the cycle. Liszt manages to include Schubert’s constant demisemiquavers, which represent the rushing brooklet carrying greetings to the poet’s loved one. Liszt moves the vocal line from tenor to soprano (in tenths) between the verses. In Der Atlas the poet likens the burden of a lover’s sorrow to the weight of the world borne by Atlas, and blames his heart’s will. Liszt varies Schubert’s tremolo accompaniment at the beginning with patterns of six semiquavers—slightly alarming in its unfamiliarity at first, but more effective in retrospect to save the demisemiquavers for the end.

In Der Doppelgänger (‘The Double’) the poet sees a vision of himself outside the house where his lost love once lived. Schubert’s terrifying song has such a starkly simple texture that Liszt is loth to do much other than to broaden the chords to compensate the lack of the voice. Die Taubenpost (‘The Pigeon-post’) is a joyful contrast to the lonely misery of the previous piece. The poet’s happy conceit likens his longing to a faithful carrier-pigeon which will never misdeliver a message of faithful love, and Liszt decorates the text with the most felicitous coruscation. Kriegers Ahnung (‘Soldier’s Foreboding’) returns us to the fear of love’s separation, with a soldier by the campfire afraid for the future of his life and love. Liszt makes a virtual symphonic poem of the piece by providing textures that express exactly a troubled mind before sleep comes at last with the happier thoughts of the distant beloved.

The second disc closes with two rarities: Frühlingsglaube, D686c (‘Spring Faith’—as nature changes in spring, so must all things, but to the good), appears in a similar transcription in the Zwölf Lieder, S558. This earlier version contains a beautiful alternative reading for the second verse (given here) which was unaccountably deleted later. The so-called ‘Troisième Edition’ of the Marche hongroise was made by a complicated cobbling together of the first edition (as in Mélodies hongroises—see Volume 31), and of the second Diabelli Edition (as in Ungarische Melodien in this volume) with a new introduction and several new interludes as well as many alterations of texture, all of which adapt the spirit of the old Liszt to the music of his youth.