Скачать или смотреть Liszt - Piano Concerto No. 2 [S. 125]

Performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Conductor - James Conlon.
Piano - Francois-Rene Duchable.

00:00 - I. Adagio sostenuto assai
05:42 - II. Allegro agitato assai
07:47 - III. Allegro moderato
13:07 - IV. Allegro deciso
15:58 - V. Marziale un poco meno allegro
20:08 - VI. Allegro animato

The second concerto, while less virtuosic than the First Piano Concerto, shows far more originality in form. In this respect it reveals a closer link to Liszt's better known symphonic poems in both style and structure. Also, while the final version of the First Concerto could be considered a soloist's showpiece, the Second shows Liszt attempting to confirm his compositional talent while distancing himself from his virtuoso performance origins. Liszt is less generous with technical devices for the soloist such as scales in octaves and contrary motion; instead of an overbearing virtuoso, the pianist often becomes an accompanist to woodwinds and strings. The soloist does not dominate the thematic material—in fact, after the opening, the pianist never has the theme in its original form. Instead their role is to create, or at least seem to create, inventive variations that lead the listener through a series of thematic transformations. The various pauses and silences are not intended breaks in the musical flow but rather serve as transitions in the musical discourse. "Organic unity" lends structure to the entire work.

With his Second Piano Concerto, Liszt took the practice of creating a large-scale compositional structure from metamorphosis alone to an extreme level. Its opening lyrical melody becomes the march-theme of the finale. That theme, in turn, morphs into an impassioned theme near the end of the concerto. The theme which begins the scherzo reappears at that sections end disguised as a totally different melody in another key. This last transformation is so complete that it is easy to not recognize the connection. Key, mode, time signature, pace and tonal color have all been transformed. For Liszt to so radically alter the music's notation while remaining true to the essential idea behind it shows a tremendous amount of ingenuity on his part.

Liszt was cautious about performances of the Second Piano Concerto. This stemmed mainly from his desire to protect his students from the undue wrath of critics. For instance, he wrote Johann von Herbeck, then director of the Vienna Philharmonic, "In case pianist Hans von Bülow should make his appearance at the Philharmonic concert he will, on my advice, not play my A-major Concerto (nor any other composition of mine) but just simply one of the Bach or Beethoven concertos. My close friends know perfectly well that it is not my desire to push myself into any concert programme whatever."

This cautiousness was not always a hard-and-fast rule. The then-17-year-old Karl Tausig played the work in Prague on March 11, 1858. Tausig repeated it in Weimar on August 8, 1860 to general acclaim. This was after the incident in that city over Peter Cornelius's The Barber of Baghdad and not long before Liszt would resign as music director there.