Franz Liszt - Concert Etude No 3 "Un Sospiro" in D-flat Major | Piano Synthesia | Library of Music

At the request of Pranav Rajesh

Concert Etude "Un Sospiro" S 144/3 in D-flat Major by Franz Liszt - difficulty 10/10

From Weimar, where he had taken the post of kapellmeister to the ducal court in 1848, Liszt attracted a number of highly talented young people who came to learn from him, bask in his aura, and witness at close range genius at work. Liszt did not give "lessons" -- he imparted to his disciples the accents, the attack, the sound that animated a sonata by Beethoven, a character piece by Schumann, or one of his own works, revealing its unique expressive force. Nor was technique discussed -- Liszt had created piano technique for generations to come in his stupendous series of etudes and it was left to the youngsters to absorb it on their own. While most of them composed prolifically -- numbering among the adherents of the New German School -- and many later enjoyed international concert careers, few are remembered today. The most greatly gifted -- Joseph Joachim Raff, Felix Draeseke, and Peter Cornelius -- had no pianistic ambitions, while pianists such as Hans von Bronsart or William Mason, are recalled, when they are recalled, for their association with Liszt. Carl Tausig left behind daunting transcriptions in the Lisztian manner that adventurous pianists occasionally revive.

Hans von Bülow, a formidable pianist and conductor who played a crucial part in establishing the works of Wagner and Liszt, looms today as the man who married Liszt's daughter Cosima, only to be cuckolded by Wagner. And there was Karl Klindworth, whose piano transcriptions of Wagner's Ring operas are still in use, and whose scoring of the first movement of Alkan's Concerto for solo piano has been exhumed and recorded. Though Klindworth was adept at reading orchestral scores at the piano, he had not considered a career as a pianist until he met Liszt at Bad Eilsen, where Liszt's mistress Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein was taking the waters. "He asked me to play something, adding 'Play this to me,' which proved to be his Concert Study in D flat major, in manuscript." Klindworth's fluent rendering of the crossed hands effects, which carry one of Liszt's most beguiling melodies (suggesting its nickname, "Un sospiro" -- a sigh) above a wave of arpeggios, set off by rapid cadenzas and a glittering sound mass sweeping the keyboard, revealed a major talent that Liszt was determined to cultivate. Weeks later the 21-year-old musician received an invitation to join Liszt in Weimar, where he spent 18 transformative months. Composed in 1848, Un sospiro was published the following year as the third of Études de concert.

Description by Adrian Corleonis

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