Liszt - Piano Concerto No. 3, S125a Op posth. (Jandó)

The story of this Concerto's resuscitation is a classic case study in musical archaeology, involving widely dispersed manuscripts (East/West Germany, Russia), misidentifications by library cataloguers, long slow work and elements of pure chance. The work, tentatively dated from 1839, was identified and assembled from the multiple sources by Jay Rosenblatt in 1989, a feat which required a considerable degree of detective work. Being in the key of E-flat major caused careless archivists at some undetermined time in the past to mistake some of the manuscripts for an early or rejected version of the composer's first Concerto (in the same key) but it soon became evident that the score was a self-contained composition in one movement. Looking through Rosenblatt's research shows that Liszt did in fact refer to this Concerto alongside his other two (a letter to a publisher from 1839 requests: "Be so good as to have Carl send to me in Pest as soon as possible the Maometto Fantasie and three scores (accompaniment to three new piano concertos [of my] composition).") however there is no evidence that any performance of the work took place, and we will probably never know whether Liszt abandoned the work or, as Rosenblatt suspects, just never got around to the planned revision.

In composing the concerto, Liszt used thematic material from works composed during the 1820s; he wrote to his mother in 1836 to send him copies of some of his earliest published compositions: two sets of Variations, the Allegro & Rondo di bravura and the early set of Études (Opp 1, 2, 4 and 6). These last became the basis of the Douze Grandes études, and three of the other works provided material for the present concerto (the reworking of compositions from over a decade earlier may be seen as marking a new beginning for the 27 year old composer).

The concerto is in a form dear to Liszt: a concert Allegro with interpolated slow movement and a coda in the character of a scherzo, with many recitative-like musings at the structural divisions. The opening presents the principal theme—derived from the Allegro di bravura, but in the guise of an introduction with cadenzas. The reappearance of the orchestra indicates the movement proper, and a triplet motif borrowed from the Rondo di bravura leads to the full statement of the principal theme in E flat minor (and despite the variety of key signatures, this concerto really is in E flat minor rather than major). The music makes its way to D major and a martial second theme which never reappears, and thence to a development section which breaks off with a short cadenza and leads to the slow movement in G flat major, whose theme is adapted from the one which Liszt had first composed for his Opus 1 Variations. The development resumes in F sharp minor and the shortened recapitulation of the first theme follows; the coda, finally in E flat major, is a scherzando transformation of the first theme with interpolated references to the slow movement.

Overall, the work's thematic transformation is ingenious, the textures exciting (the beginning is strangely like Richard Strauss's 'Burleske,' with timpani participating in the theme) and the thumbprint of that elegant, ironical Lisztian genius is present. For anyone who responds to that, this is a wonderful discovery.

Pianist: Jenő Jandó
Conductor: Lamberto Gardelli
Orchestra: Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra