Certainly there is a wealth of original thinking in what Liszt wrote, but the basic material and structure remain Paganini’s.) The various alternatives and the later revisions as Grandes Études de Paganini follow the same sources as the earlier set, so the following notes address both volumes simultaneously. (It is interesting that, although these works are really transcriptions, they are always catalogued and published as original Liszt works. They form the basis for all but one of Liszt’s Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, and Liszt remains very faithful to Paganini’s text. They were published in 1820 and were of incalculable influence upon whole generations of violinists and, just as importantly, composers. Paganini’s Twenty-four Caprices, Op 1, for unaccompanied violin were composed during the early years of the nineteenth century and pay homage to a like-named work by Pietro Locatelli. Liszt wrote a set of six studies in 1838, sketched a further fantasy on the ‘Clochette’ theme and the Carnaval de Venise (another set of variations on this latter theme exists in a copyist’s manuscript but may not be authentic) in 1845, and rewrote the six studies in 1851. ![]() Schumann later wrote a second set of piano studies and at the end of his creative life wrote piano accompaniments to the Caprices (an accomplishment which was echoed even later by Szymanowski). In 1966 Peter Gammond published an amusing and enlightening wee volume called Bluff your way in Music in which he ruefully observed: ‘One cannot help feeling sorry for Paganini-as a composer he has never been rated very highly yet seemed to supply a lending library of themes for everyone else.’ This was an aside in an article about Rachmaninov but it is clear that Liszt and Schumann (who rated Paganini very seriously as a composer, as indeed should we all) began the happy trend of writing pieces on Paganini’s themes in 1831/2, Schumann first with a sketched work for piano and orchestra and then his first set of studies (opus 3) on Paganini’s Caprices, Liszt following with his Grande Fantaisie de bravoure sur ‘La Clochette’, based upon the third movement of Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto. ![]() Liszt first heard Paganini in April 1831 and was so entranced by the unfettered expressiveness of his playing, Paganini’s ability to turn to utterly musical account a technique of legendary transcendence, that the young composer immediately declared his intention of achieving upon the piano an equivalent new technical mastery in order to unleash musical thoughts which had remained hitherto inexpressible. The intermediate version of Mazeppa and the only free-standing composition in the Technische Studien are added as an envoi. ![]() This recording completes the survey of Liszt’s piano études with every version of all the studies based upon music by Paganini.
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