Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 04/21/1997, uploaded on 08/25/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

During the early nineteenth century, audiences across Europe were in awe of the seemingly superhuman abilities of the violin virtuoso Paganini. Though many of the techniques which made Paganini famous were already in existence, he nevertheless singlehandedly ushered them into the standard technique, raising the level of violin performance, and influencing violinists after him. At one performance Paganini gave in Paris, a young Franz Liszt was present in the audience. Liszt was captivated with Paganini’s performance and skill, so much so that he determined to become as great a performer on the piano as Paganini was on the violin. To demonstrate his new abilities, Liszt once again turned to Paganini for inspiration and composed six piano etudes based on the violin virtuoso’s own caprices in 1838-40. These etudes were a compendium of the techniques Liszt innovated and it is quite likely he was the only one capable of performing them. So Liszt followed in the steps of his mentor and not only established himself as the preeminent piano virtuoso of his day but raised the level of performance for successive generations of pianists. Liszt later returned to these etudes in 1851. In this later version, the better known Grande Etudes de Paganini, he removed many of the extreme technical difficulties, placing them within the grasp of more pianists.

Known as “La chasse,” the penultimate etude is based on Paganini’s ninth caprice, a study in double-stopping, and cleverly adapted by Liszt for the piano. Based on an idyllic tune in E major, he follows Paganini’s direction in marking that the initial statement of the melody, in the higher octave, “imitando il Flauto,” and the response in the lower octave, “imitando il Corno.” A simple rondo, the light-hearted refrain is interrupted first by a weightier episode in E minor employing a similar figuration heard at the close of the main tune. A brief reprise of the refrain leads to the second episode in A minor. Considerably longer than the previous episode, it introduces an energetic motif amid sweeping glissandos and punctuated, staccato chords embellished by brilliant figurations in the upper reaches of the keyboard. Finally, a last statement of the E major refrain, imbued with a restless energy by reiterated sixteenth notes in the left hand completes the etude’s rondo form.    Joseph DuBose

courtesy of the Liszt-Kodaly Society of Spain