Perhaps no musician in the 19th century was a greater promoter of the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven than Franz Liszt, who not only conducted them regularly in Weimar, but made piano transcriptions of all nine, which were published together in 1865. The keyboard version of the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, "Choral," was one of the most challenging for Liszt, who agonized over making a viable arrangement of the complex choral finale, the famous setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy . Yet Liszt's bravura transcription was a ...
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Perhaps no musician in the 19th century was a greater promoter of the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven than Franz Liszt, who not only conducted them regularly in Weimar, but made piano transcriptions of all nine, which were published together in 1865. The keyboard version of the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, "Choral," was one of the most challenging for Liszt, who agonized over making a viable arrangement of the complex choral finale, the famous setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy . Yet Liszt's bravura transcription was a success, and the Ninth was made available to musicians and listeners who, in the age before recordings, were unable to hear this work any other way. For this recording, Yury Martynov has recorded Liszt's reduction on a Blüthner piano, ca. 1867, which gives a good idea of the sonorities he would have known, though for his own performances he favored a Bösendorfer, which could withstand his powerful playing. This recording shows that the Blüthner piano is a good choice, and Martynov...
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