Gergely Bogányi (piano)

Liszt’s first fifteen Hungarian rhapsodies were given their final form around the turn of the 1840s to 1850s and the fifteenth piece in the series uses the Rákóczi March that so fired contemporary Hungarians. Around this time, during his Weimar period, Liszt made piano arrangements of six Polish songs by Chopin who was no longer alive by then. We will hear two of these. The first is Spring, composed by Chopin in 1838, and the second My Darling, a poem by Mickiewicz, set to music by Chopin in 1837. In 1848 Liszt popularised in a similar way with a piano version, the opening song of a cycle (Myrthen) composed eight years earlier by Schumann, Widmung (Dedication). But Liszt made the greatest number of his piano arrangements from Schubert songs: we will hear three from a group of songs arranged for piano in 1835-37. The programme ends with two of the three concert etudes composed in 1848 not with pedagogical intention but as virtuoso numbers; Un sospiro (Sigh), a piece that requires dexterous hand-crossing; La leggierezza evoking Chopin in its dance rhythm, and one of Liszt’s first pieces on the Faust theme, a group that reflects the influence of Nikolaus Lenau much more than Goethe, the Mephisto Waltz No. 1, written around 1860 – with its fast tempo it is real devil’s music.

Programme:

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 (Rákóczi March)
Chopin-Liszt:
- Wiosna (Spring)
 - Moja pieszczotka (My darling)
Schumann-Liszt: Liebeslied (Widmung)
Schubert-Liszt: Du bist die Ruh
Liszt:
- Auf dem Wasser singen
- Erlkönig
- Un Sospiro
- La leggierezza
- Mephisto Waltz No. 1