3 Lieder transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt (1811–86)

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

3 Lieder transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt (1811–86)

Ständchen

Gretchen am Spinnrade

Erlkönig

Though no virtuoso himself and composer of little virtuoso music, Schubert was a great source of inspiration to Liszt. That much would be clear from the song arrangments alone – dozens of them, including the whole of Schwanengesang and much of Die Winterreise – which are clearly not virtuoso exploitations but expressions of admiration and affection in Liszt’s own terms.

Liszt’s version of Gretchen am Spinnrade, which was published with Erlkönig among his earliest Schubert song arrangments in 1838, is a particularly persuasive example. True, it is more than a modest integration of voice and piano accompaniment, but the accumulation of colour as Gretchen’s erotic ardour increases – the application first of right-hand octaves to the melodic line and then the addition of thirds and sixths at the climax – is by no means alien to the passionate spirit of the song.

Schubert’s accompaniment to Erlkönig is already highly dramatic. While elaborating that aspect of the song, Liszt also contrives to characterise the three protagonists – on their first appearance the father is firmly set in the left hand, the son also in the left but nervously crossed over the right, the Erlkönig in eerily arpeggiated chords high in the right hand –in such a way as make clear and miraculously emotive distinctions between them.