Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

composed his transcription of the

Sarabande The sarabande (from ) is a dance in triple metre, or the music written for such a dance. History The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with castanets. A dance called ''zara ...

and

Chaconne A chaconne ( , ; ; ; earlier English: chacony) is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for Variation (music), variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass ...

from

Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, H ...

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

Almira ''Almira, Königin von Castilien'' ("Almira, Queen of Castile", HWV 1; full title: ''Der in Krohnen erlangte Glücks-Wechsel, oder: Almira, Königin von Castilien'') is Handel's first opera, composed when he was 19 years old. It was first perfo ...

'' for piano solo (S.181) in 1879 for his English

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

student

Walter Bache Walter Bache (; 19 June 184226 March 1888) was an English pianist and conductor noted for his championing the music of Franz Liszt and other music of the New German School in England. He studied privately with Liszt in Italy from 1863 to 1865, ...

to play at a Handel festival in England. The ''Almira'' transcription is noted by critics as one of the most striking of Liszt's late concert arrangements as well as his only setting of a

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

piece from his late period. Liszt's decision to set Handel was probably due at least in part to please British audiences, for whom Handel was still the preeminent national composer and before whom Bache would likely appear.Baker, 103. Nevertheless, the choice of subject matter was surprising, not only by being Handel instead of

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the or ...

but also from being taken from a Handel opera which was virtually ignored at the time.Howard, 7. In his most recent baroque transcription prior to ''Almira'', that of Bach's Fantasie and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 dating from 1867, Liszt follows the original almost exactly. With ''Almira'', Liszt deviates considerably. While retaining the original contour of Handel's melodies, he changes the order of dances (in the opera the chaconne is followed by the sarabande), then adds introductory, transitional and

developmental Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosis ...

material along with his own varied treatment of the dances themselves.Hinson, 65–66. The result of Liszt's work is a highly unified double-set of

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individual ...

— one set of variations on the sarabande followed by a separate set on the chaconne — nearly becoming an independent work in the process. (

Humphrey Searle Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Sch ...

in fact catalogued the work as an independent composition.) The sarabande dominates the piece, functioning much like a Bach chaconne as variations on a harmonic progression, while the chaconne itself is of the balletic variety, having nothing to do with the repeated bass lines of the work. This work is said by some to anticipate

Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

's late-romantic settings of Bach in its overall grandeur, especially in the major key transformation of the sarabande at the work's conclusion.

Notes

References

* Baker, James M., ed. Kenneth Hamilton, "A survey of the late piano works", '' The Cambridge Companion to Liszt'' (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). (paperback). * Hinson, Maurice, ''The Pianist's Guide to Transcriptions, Arrangements, and Paraphrases'' (Indiana University Press).

* Howard, Leslie, Notes for Hyperion CDA66371/2, ''Liszt at the Opera I'', Leslie Howard, piano.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarabande And Chaconne From Handel's Opera Almira Compositions by Franz Liszt Compositions for solo piano Variations 1879 compositions Arrangements of opera excerpts Arrangements of compositions by George Frideric Handel