Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/10/2014, uploaded on 05/28/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Selection from Müllerlieder von Franz Schubert       Franz Liszt

The greatest pianist of his time and a composer of sweeping vision, Franz Liszt was also a zealous advocate for other composers, whose work he popularized through various keyboard arrangements. He had a particular feeling for the music of Franz Schubert (1797-1828), more than fifty of whose songs he transcribed over his lifetime—most of them during the crumbling of his affair with the countess Marie d’Agoult,  which perhaps made him more susceptible to the lovelorn theme of so many of these Lieder. Wohin? (Where?) comes from Schubert’s 1823 song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, based on a verse collection by Wilhelm Müller. Known also as Müllerlieder, which is what Liszt called his keyboard arrangement, Schubert’s cycle traces the tale of a young miller whose carefree hike along a brook leads to a fatal liaison. The song, distinguished by water-rippled nature-painting that Liszt also incorporates, provides before-and-after images of doomed infatuation.      Yoonie Han

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.