Tannhäuser Overture (1845)

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Tannhäuser Overture (1845)

arranged for piano by Franz Liszt S422 (1848)

“It’s like a wonderful dream come true,” said Wagner on being presented with Liszt’s piano version of the Tannhäuser Overture - impressed no doubt by its brilliance and perhaps relieved too that, although it is described on the title page as a “concert parphrase,” it is tolerably faithful to the original. Certainly, it observes Wagner’s structure (in the Dresden version) and where possible it offers a straight transcription of the orchestral score. The opening Pilgrims’ Chorus presented Liszt with no problems and he needed to make only slight adjustments to accommodate the excited violin commentary eventually superimposed on the wind chorale. In the section devoted to the Venusberg music, on the other hand, he had to replace Wagner’s string tremolandos with more pianistic figuration. Since Tannhäuser’s heroic love song transfers well to piano from woodwind and violins the only other significant departure is in the coda of the piece where List had to devise his own way of adding acoustic weight to the piano texture.