Classical Music | Piano Music

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

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Taking shape as early as 1826, when Franz Liszt was only fifteen years of age, the twelve pieces of the Études d’exécution transcendante (Transcendental Etudes) took a quarter of a century to take their final form. The original twelve etudes, written by the youthful Hungarian, were titled Étude in douze exercices (Studies in Twelve Exercises) and were intended to be the first in a much larger set of 48 total etudes. However, the remaining pieces never materialized. Liszt then revisited the etudes and produced revised versions in 1837 under the title of Douze Grande Études (Twelve Great Studies). In 1851-52, he returned to the etudes once again and fashioned them into their final form. In their final form, Liszt removed some of the difficulties, including stretches larger than a tenth, to accommodate pianists with smaller hands and less technical skill. This final set Liszt dedicated to his former teacher, Carl Czerny.

The fourth etude, Mazeppa, is considered one of the most difficult of the set. It was inspired by Victor Hugo’s poem Les Orientales in which the protagonist, Mazeppa, is tied to a horse after provoking the jealousy and anger of a Polish noblewoman’s husband. The wild horse drags Mazeppa all the way to the Ukraine where, after being set free and named king, he leads a Cossack uprising. Liszt’s musical depiction features prominently the galloping of the horse, particularly during the first statement of the etudes principal theme where an uncommon, not to mention difficult, fingering is used to achieve the galloping effect. The melody is stern and march-like and reappears in various transformations throughout the etude, including a song-like recreation amid soaring arpeggios. The waning energy of the horse is heard in the middle of the piece and just as it appears that it may be giving out in exhaustion, it breaks forward at a frightening and heretofore unseen pace. A triumphant coda, in the key of the tonic major, is Liszt’s representation of the last stanza of Hugo’s poem: il tombe, et se relève roi! (“he falls then rises a king”).       Joseph DuBose