Not that incredible I would think. For a long time concert pianists would begin their concert with an improvised prelude.

Not sure I follow you. Chopin's variation may be the finest musically, but Hexameron is very much the sum of its parts and that is how it is remembered today. IMHO the piano & orchestra version gilds the lily, and I think Lewenthal made the best compromise in his splendidly atmospheric and "sense of occasion" recording.

Interestingly, without Hexameron what is the chance anyone but a specialist would recognise the name Pixis?

Pixis? I don't recognize the name!

Regards,

Sinful statements!!
Surely we are all aware of Pixis' take on Meyerbeer's opera, which was also the starting point for Liszt's most successful warhorse: Robert le

I only know of Robert le Diable because of the Grand Duo Concertante for piano and cello by Chopin and Franchomme. I guess it's not exactly a warhorse.

The name "Pixis" reminds me of another sin of which I'm culpable: I've never heard of François-Joseph Fétis other than in connection with the Méthode des Méthodes.

Steven

The very best source about Liszt: Alan Walker's three volume biography.

Almost everybody improvised regularly back then. I have just finished reading a bio of Hummel, and he actually preferred improvising in public to playing written music. There was a fairly amazing story in the book about how at the end of a music party/concert, Hummel was getting ready to leave, but people prevailed on him to do a little improvising first. As it happened, people were waltzing in the next room, and so he started to improvise around the dance, and then he amazed everyone by managing to weave in thematic material from all the music that had been heard earlier in the evening, and then topped it all off with a fugue, keeping the waltz going throughout the whole thing!! He also frequently did duo improvisations in concerts with Moscheles.

Ah, the good old days...

Hmm, I guess there was more improv going on back then, nowadays it seems pretty rare on the classical scene (which I think is pretty good actually, I don´t care much for improv).

But I still think that being singled out to improvise a prelude and a finale to a concert featuring pianists such as Pixis, Thalberg, Herz, Czerny and Chopin is pretty incredible and not really an ordinary feat, even for a pianist back in those days.
Just imagine the pressure and expectations one would have had to deal with at such a star-studded event, not only performing and improvising in front of an audience, but also that many other accomplished pianists.

The young Clara Wieck (Schumann) initially drew a lot of criticism as the result of her innovation of playing pieces from memory. At the time the only time a pianist played without music was when he was improvising. The lack of music was intended to underscore the improvisatory nature of his performance. Clara memorized easily and quickly but not particularly accurately and often sounded more like she was presenting her own impression of a work rather than the work itself. Because of the liberties she was inclined to take, her early audiences sometimes thought she was trying to pass off others' compositions as her own improvisions.

To my knowledge Liszt Sight-read not Chopins Etudes but his LADIES!

Based on this description, I'm surprised that her choice to play from memory was precedent-setting. And yet she is credited with changing the accepted standards of performance practice from that point onward.

Or is that an anecdote, too?

Or is that another Music 101 topic of which I'm ignorant?

Steven

I imagine she got better at it as she got older. She was just a kid then. There was a particular piece by Beethoven that several people commented on. It seemed a bit odd to them.

sorry, deleted post

Well, I had been meaning to say that I didn't know which composer was the antecedent of "his."

Did Liszt sight-read Chopin's ladies, or his own ladies?

Well, I had also been meaning to say that I don't even know that that means!

And sophial, you were right in any case.

Steven

ah, Steven, you caught it! . Thanks.

Two stories presented here are told about many people.

1) I read it was Czerny who was asked by Beethoven, when he presented himself as a candidate for instruction, 10 years old, to play one of the P&F from the WTC. He then asked the boy to transpose the thing to a different key, which he did. This prompted Beethoven to announce that he would take him as a pupil.

2) When Brahms was touring with the violinist (I forget the name), he was supposed to play the Waldstein sonata, which is in C major. The piano in the hall was found to be a semitone flat, so Brahms shrugged and played the thing in C# major instead, from memory.

Finally, I think it was Vierne who used to improvise extremely difficult stuff for the crowds at Notre Dame every Sunday.

The upshot of all this is that transposition, even of very difficult works, was not only commonplace, but expected of professional musicians, just as improvisation was also expected. In our fetishizing of the score in the modern age, we've let those skills atrophy as we search instead for the perfect performance. I'd much rather hear one of our great pianists improvise on something than hear yet another rendition of, say, the Appassionata.

pianists can do great things.

ta da!

For the life of me, i couldn't transpose a thing without great forthought, notes, and writing out the chords... but suddenly was able to transpose a choral piece, not simple one, into A flat.. it just fell together, the fingers found the notes. I am a lot more comfortable transposing now. i can't do it automatically, but i can do it.

I bet those octave glissandi were murder in C#!

Another thread rises from a four-year old grave!

Who cares?

Well, it's hard to continue a discussion when the OP and many other posters don't use this website anymore, at least one of the people in this conversation has been banned (and in several other accounts as well)....

Sometimes its like riding a bike...if you think about it, it doesn't work, but just do it, and it works fine.

and here I didn't even notice

at any rate, it was a fun read

I have the famous DG cd of Emil Gilels playing the two Brahms piano concerti. The liner notes said Gilels knew #1 well, but apparently he sight-read the second in the recording session, one take. It is considered world-class I think. Apparently there are many professional pianists who can do things like this.

Sorry-- I don't believe it for a second.

My disbelief inspired me to do some research. Do you mean this DG recording? It's apparently a remastering of a 1972 recording. But Gilels had already recorded the piece in 1958 with Reiner.

Maybe he knew #1 well, and it had just been a while since he'd played #2, so he didn't have it in his fingertips as well. He did not sightread it for the recording session-- no way.

-J

I've not ever heard that story, but I would have a very difficult time buying it as well.

Some people mean "reading" when they say/write "sight-reading".


John

I'm very slow at reading music and with everything I do on the piano I rely very much on my memory, so when I read stories like this it seems like pure wizardry to me.
Even if you can read music that fast, how do your hands "know" all the moves? How can you make quick, precise jumps etc. if you haven't gone through these moves before? I just don't get it... not that I don't believe any of it, but it's just mind boggling to me.

I have often heard that Liszt was the most technically-accomplished pianist of all time. What I have always wondered is, how can we know? Since recordings weren't around, we only have personal accounts from his contemporaries. In times to come, pianists from say about 1950 on can be compared at least on a fairly simple level by their recordings, but Mozart? Tausig? Beethoven? Chopin? I think the stories about the famous pianists and composers of the past are fascinating, but I guess we will never know. What kind of performer was Bach? Above I read that Bizet was quite accomplished. I didn't know that although I know he was a musical genius. There are so many famous pianists who either didn't record, or recorded when the process was in its infancy.

No.