Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 10/02/2011, uploaded on 10/02/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In 1826, a youthful Franz Liszt, only fifteen years of age, presented to the world his Étude en douze exercices (Study in Twelve Exercises). Though originally conceived to be part of a much larger collection of forty-eight exercise, the other etudes never materialized. Instead, Liszt returned a decade later to the twelve he had written, and transformed them into the Douze Grandes Études (Twelve Great Studies), published in 1837. Exponentially more difficult than the original 1826 etudes, the Douze Grandes Études, along with the Études d'exécution transcendante d'après Paganini became the vehicles by which Liszt proved himself the undisputed monarch of the piano, beating out his closest rival, Sigismund Thalberg, in a contest of sheer skill. Both sets of etudes gave Liszt the appearance of having of superhuman abilities and were catered to his own technical accomplishments. In 1851, Liszt revised the Douze Grandes Études, paring away many of the extreme technical demands, and gave them the title by which they are known today—Études d'exécution transcendante.

The eighth etude of the 1837 Grandes Études became Wilde Jagd in the 1851 collection. A comparison of the two versions shows not only how Liszt simplified the etude from a technical standpoint but also compositionally. While both follow the outlines of sonata form, with a first subject in C minor and a closely related second subject in the relative major, the 1837 version is much broader in scope and dimensions. It is clear the etude was composed with technical display in mind and the consequent expansive development and full recapitulation place a strain on its form. In the 1851 version, Liszt significantly reduced the size of the development and completely cut the first theme from the recapitulation. This coupled with the reduced technical difficulties certainly makes Wilde Jagd the more artistically satisfying of the two.       Joseph DuBose