Liszt Piano Sonata Monographs - Wensleydale Press

"[...] Gerard Carter and Martin Adler have, however, convincingly proven that a complete first version of the Sonata, a “Precursor”, must already have existed in May or June 1849. [...]"

– Mária Eckhardt, in: Introduction to "Piano Sonata b minor. Facsimile of the autograph." HN 3227, Henle, München, revised edition 2015.

Franz Liszt completed his Piano Sonata in B minor at Weimar in 1853. It met with a mixed reception from the musical establishment of the day but is now a part of the repertoire of every leading pianist and may even be the most frequently recorded and performed piano work ever written. It is the outstanding example of the compositional process of thematic transformation. The grandeur and lyrical power of its themes, based on three motifs so clearly stated at the outset, place it at the pinnacle of the piano literature.

Liszt composed his Sonata in 1852–53, or so we have been led to believe. We now know, however, that by June 1849 Liszt had already composed a precursor Sonata and tested it by performance to his inner circle. This monograph explains in detail the recently discovered and researched facts obtained by the authors on which this entirely novel proposition is based and places these facts in their historical and musicological context.

Contents:

1818–1848: Influences of Beethoven, Hummel,
Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Alkan
1849 January (est.): Liszt's Sketch of Motifs A and B
1849: Liszt Sketches the Andante sostenuto
1849 January (est.): Liszt Commences Serious
Compositional Work on his Sonata
1849 May 30: Liszt Plays "Some New Compositions"
for Bülow and Winterberger
1849 May or June: Liszt Tells Bülow that he has "Begun Bigger Works"
1849 May or June (est.): Liszt Plays his Precursor Sonata
to his Inner Weimar Circle
1849 July (est.): Kühmstedt Starts to Compose his
Fugue Based on Liszt's Motifs B and C
1850 June (est.): Liszt Performs Kühmstedt's Fugue
1850 September: Bülow Plans to Visit Kühmstedt
1853/54: Liszt's Sonata Completed and Published
Liszt's Annotations on the Szendy Copy in Budapest
Liszt's Sonata Compared to Kühmstedt's Fugue

The appendices include all the original sources with translations, comments by
Prof. Dr. Tibor Szász and a facsimile of the whole of Kühmstedt's Fugue.
A number of illustrations are included as well as numerous musical examples.

Paperback illustrated 144 pages 210 x 148 mm
ISBN 978-3-8442-0842-9 RRP EUR 30

About the authors:

Gerard Carter (1943–2024) was the published author of books and articles on the Liszt Sonata and on nineteenth century piano and organ performance. He worked on Liszt research with Martin Adler and Tibor Szász, including the completion of the current Urtext edition, and produced CDs of historic reproducing piano roll recordings such as those of the Liszt Sonata by Ernest Schelling and Liszt pupil Eugen d’Albert. Gerard studied piano with Eunice Gardiner at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and organ with Jean Langlais in Paris. He held the Associate diploma in music (piano performing) and was a graduate in Economics and Law from the University of Sydney.

Martin Adler, born 1973 in Kassel, Germany, earned a PhD in chemistry and worked as an IT specialist before becoming a grammar school teacher of chemistry and physics. An amateur pianist and musicological researcher, he has co-authored and published a number of well-received books and articles on the Liszt Sonata together with Gerard Carter and Tibor Szász. He lives in Bonn with his wife and children and collects piano roll recordings of nineteenth-century pianists as well as 78 rpm piano records.

Contact: info@lisztsonata.com