Walhall from Der Ring des Nibelungen [1878-80]

No kind of orchestral or operatic transcription was too challenging for Liszt to cope with. A piano version of the Symphonie fantastique, the Quartet from Rigoletto, the Tannhäuser Overture? No problem. When he came to work on the closing scene of Das Rheingold, however, he approached it in a different way. The last but one of his dozen Wagner arrangements, completed in 1880, Walhall is not so much a transcription as a meditation. It begins with a poetic contemplation of the Ring motif and, after a quietly thoughtful episode based on the noble Valhalla theme itself, it is diverted into a short fantasy on the Sword motif. Even then, although he re-introduces the Valhalla theme in its characteristic D flat major harmonies at this point, Liszt holds the full-scale numinous treatment in reserve for just the last few bars.

Isoldens Liebestod [1867]

The most remarkable of all Liszt’s transcriptions must be his 1867 version of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde - to which he was attracted, no doubt, by the apparent impossibility of translating such a legato flux of vocal and orchestral sound to an essentially percussive instrument. Apart from the four bars of introduction, which are taken from the second-act love duet, it is a straightforward transcription with no tricks: the tremolandos are there in the orchestral score anyway. Far from attempting to conceal the percussive quality of the piano, he uses it to colour the melodic line so that it stands out clearly from the continual reverberation of harmonies which so magically help to sustain it.

Gerald Larner©