Liszt / Trois Morceaux

Liszt, Franz
(1811-1886)

Trois Morceaux tirés des ''Années de Pèlerinage''
E. Lassen [1874]

Flöte, Oboe, Klarinette,
Horn und Fagott

Score and parts

© 2009
ee 209040
ISMN M 700196-52-3

These wind quintet arrangements by Eduard Lassen of piano works by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) are taken from the collection “Année de Pèlerinage” (Vol. 1, “Premièr Année: Suisse”), in the version published by Schott in 1855. Liszt had reached back to these works from the 1830s and rearranged them for this edition. With the poetically composed travel impressions of “Année de Pèlerinage” — at the time, Switzerland was viewed as the quintessential land of Romance — Liszt the virtuoso was venturing upon new compositional paths.

Born in Copenhagen and educated in Brussels, Eduard Lassen (1830-1904) was first widely known as a composer, particularly through performances of his operas conducted by Franz Liszt, who was Court Kapellmeister in Weimar at the time. But of more lasting importance than Lassen’s works were his accomplishments as a partisan conductor of the New German School and as Liszt’s successor as Court Kapellmeister in Weimar from 1858 to 1895; one such manifestly successful performance was of Wagner’s Tristan in 1874.

The arrangements for wind quintet by Eduard Lassen of three Liszt pieces newly published here are based on the Schott edition of 1874 (Plate No. 21142). In contrast to the original version, the first piece, Pastorale, has been transposed from E major into E flat major for ease of play. Lassen simplified the sixteenth note passage solely in measures 18 and 45 of the second piece, Le mal du pays, and rearranged the figure in bars 65 through 72 for flute in Eglogue. Further minor corrections have been made in regard to dynamics and tempo directions.