“Cujus animam”

transcribed for piano from Rossini’s Stabat Mater

Among Liszt’s hundreds of piano transcriptions of works by other composers are several highly attractive pieces by Rossini. The best known examples are the Soirées musicales but there are a few others, including the overture to William Tell and excerpts from two choral works, La Charité and the Stabat Mater. In fact he so much liked the tenor aria “Cujus animam” from the Stabat Mater that he also arranged it for voice and organ and for trombone and organ. Leaving aside the once controversial matter of whether a jaunty march is appropriate to the setting of a sacred text, the fact is that “Cujus animam” is a wonderful tune. Liszt presents it in his piano arrangement much as Rossini does in the original voice-and-orchestra version. A loud introduction in octaves is followed by the tune itself, quietly at first and then, at the point where the tenor takes it up in the Stabat Mater, in octaves. The middle section, including the rumbling triplets in the bass, is fairly close to Rossini until it comes to the brief cadenza introduced by Liszt just before the march tune is recalled. The other little cadenza, heard shortly before the end, is taken literally from the solo tenor part.