Franz Liszt's colleagues considered him to be one of the most accomplished and innovative practitioners in the field of musical reproduction, a reputation for which he is still admired today. Yet, while his transcriptions are widely performed, few studies have investigated the role that transcriptions played in Liszt's artistry, to say nothing of the impact they had on the music-making experience of his day. Using a host of interdisciplinary methods and primary source materials, this 2010 book provides a comprehensive survey of Liszt's lifelong involvement with the transcription, in which he assumed the roles of composer, collaborator, propagandist, commemorator, philosopher, and artist while simultaneously disseminating - often critically - the music of Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert, Wagner, and other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers. By recognizing transcription as an extraordinarily flexible tool for Liszt and his contemporaries, Liszt as Transcriber provides numerous musical, cultural, and historical contexts for this fundamentally important practice of the period.
• Proposes a new approach to the analysis of musical transcriptions, relating it to larger trends in art, literary studies, and philosophy, allowing for a greater understanding of a fundamentally important - yet largely overlooked - practice of the period • Introduces a repertoire long admired but previously rarely covered in detail by scholars • Considers many of Liszt's transcriptions as artistic collaborations, deepening our understanding of Liszt's professional involvement with Berlioz, Wagner, and other contemporaries
Contents
Introduction: the visible transcriber; 1. Models and methods; 2. Collaboration and content; 3. Compositional fantasies; 4. Monuments and mythologies; 5. Opera and drama; 6. Stylistic reconstructions; Bibliography.
Review
Review of the hardback: 'An excellent new book …' The New York Review of Books
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