Abstract:
Franz Liszt’s Zwölf Lieder von Franz Schubert, S.558 (revised 1876), published by Anton Diabelli, is the product of a long-standing fascination with musical arrangement, and radically exemplifies Liszt’s own musical interpretation of Schubert’s Lieder. During 1837 and 1838, Liszt formed a new set of transcriptions that adhere to and depart from Schubert’s songs. My research examined the symbiosis between performer, arranger, composer, and poet. Performing the transcriptions presents a fascinating multi-stage process that originates from the initial German poetry; to Schubert setting the verse for a singer and piano accompaniment; to Liszt translating the text and vocal timbre to piano writing; and finally, to the pianist’s own translation of the work in performance. In engaging with the historical context of Liszt’s time and the analysis of the German verse and the musical score, I also interrogated a purely textual study by recording my learning and performing process. This ethnographic, embodied mode of research is pertinent to the complex genesis of Liszt’s transcriptions, which lie in the space between paraphrase and diplomatic transcription. The Zwölf Lieder characterise the original Lieder text whilst exploring new pianistic possibilities of colour. This interdisciplinary study considered how performance research and historical-cultural studies inform each other and lead to practical guidelines for the modern performer and interpreter. Through analysing the scores of Schubert’s Zwölf Lieder and Liszt’s piano transcriptions, the pianist mirrors Liszt’s own desire to be the ‘intelligent engraver’ and the ‘conscientious translator’ in his transcribing process.