UPDATE: Be sure to read the comment from Emiellucifuge .. and my response.
It’s fascinating to compare “Transcriptions” of one great composers work, with the “original.” Here are just two examples: Liszt on Beethoven and Chopin on Mozart. Beethovens’ 5th Symphony – first movement. Yeah .. yeah – I know. We’ve all heard it a million times! Still interesting to see what Liszt did with it. And here’s Liszt. I just can’t see the point! To “render” such a masterwork and not really do anything with it. I don’t think it’s the pianist at fault (Glenn Gould) … just wondering why Liszt bothered.
liszt transcription of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony Alegro-con-brio
And then Chopin gives his interpertation on Mozart.
First here’s Mozart’s La di darem la mano from Don Giovanni
la ci darem la mano
Then here are 4 variations Chopin composed for it. At least he did something with the theme! … played around a bit with it!
variation-iii sempre sostenuto
variation ii veloce ma accuratamente
variation i brillante
tema allegretto
admin
March 13, 2010 at 7:56 pmGreat point! You’re right. I’ve compared apples with oranges here. Won’t do it again!
Jim
Emiellucifuge
March 13, 2010 at 1:16 pmLiszt most likely intended this in order for pianists to be able to play the work, seems fairly obvious to me.
There is a large difference between a transcripition and set of Variations. Liszts task was to make the symphony playable on a piano and remaining as faithful as possible to the score. Chopin set out to write a completely new piece using mozarts theme as a starting point. They are incomparable really.