Reimagining the Genius of Beethoven:

Franz Liszt's Transcription of Beethoven's Symphony no. 2 in D Major, OP. 36, for Solo Piano

By Marie-Sophie Brackstone

This paper examines Franz Liszt’s solo piano transcription of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36. Beethoven was a composer who contributed to the shift of music from the Classical era to the Romantic period of music, while Liszt was fully immersed in Romantic style. This paper successfully determines that, through his accurate and detailed transcription, Liszt did more than simply transcribe the original work for solo piano but rather used the transcription as a means to better engage with and further display the genius of Beethoven through his new rendition.

Although it is not as well known as his other major symphonic works, Symphony No. 2, Op. 36 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- 1827) was a turning point for the trajectory of his compositional career, in which he writes in a Classical style, yet featuring Romantic elements that he would later fully embrace. This was composed shortly before his famous 1802 Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter addressed to his brothers, in which he expressed deep internal suffering regarding his declining hearing. This letter served as a way to deal with his depression, where he addressed what composing music meant for him. His time in Heiligenstadt signaled a new, dramatic, and emotive era of composing.1 Symphony No. 2 is an example of Beethoven’s work with subtle overtones of emotion and musical poetry, without exhausting them as he does in his later symphonies, whereas earlier Beethoven sought to write music that was innovative, within the limits of the lateClassical conventions of the time. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 exemplifies his evolution of the Classical symphony towards the Romantic. All four movements showcase his monumentality and contribute artistically to each other. Additionally, it is often thought that measure 23 of the Adagio molto of the first movement is a foreshadowing of the opening of the first movement of his powerful Ninth Symphony.2 Franz Liszt (1811-1886), a virtuosic pianist and composer, was born at the time when Beethoven entered the third “phase” of his career, consisting of his late style which shifts to the Romantic era. Beethoven’s legacy was influencing the style of Classical music when Liszt was a young pianist, and Liszt was a frequent performer of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.3 Liszt did not publicly perform his transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies, but in 1865 all nine of Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies were published.4 This paper will compare Liszt’s transcription of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major to Beethoven’s original work. Beyond the harmonic accuracy of Liszt’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, questions remain as to whether Liszt remained true to Beethoven’s original musical intentions, whilst incorporating his personal musical flair. This paper highlights particular features from the original work that are key to heightening the understanding of the original symphony. This claim will be proven through historical analysis of Liszt’s preface to Partitions de Piano, which contains his transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, as well as formal analysis that explores the source of musical difficulty in the original score that was attractive to Liszt’s virtuosic character, and which allowed Liszt to add a personal style to the transcription. Ultimately, Liszt leaves behind his signature compositional and artistic style in order to highlight the genius of Beethoven. Liszt’s transcription is a dialogue and homage to Beethoven.

Liszt’s piano transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies were not the first. For example, Johnann Nepomuk Hummel (1778- 1837) transcribed Beethoven’s Second Symphony for solo piano and then for a piano quartet, originally with flute instead of the viola.5 Liszt was obviously aware of these other transcriptions, and in the preface to his Partitions de Piano, he shines insight into his motives by writing that it would be “a rather useless employment of my time if I had added yet another version of the symphonies in a manner to now, routine.”6 In other words, Liszt believed that the transcriptions of Beethoven’s works that already existed did not accurately encapsulate the genius of the original works and did not remain true to Beethoven’s original intentions. For example, in his transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 2 for solo piano, Hummel substituted Beethoven’s original repeated notes and tremolos with arpeggios to make the passage more virtuosic for Hummel’s contemporary musical trends (Figures 1 and 2). Liszt, on the other hand, did not think that adding personal stylistic traits to the transcription would benefit the understanding of the work as a whole. With the respect he had for Beethoven, Liszt set out to transcribe Beethoven’s works to bring out the

...multitude of details and finer points that make such a significant contribution to the perfection of the whole. I will be satisfied if I stand on the level of the intelligent engraver, or the conscientious translator, who grasps the spirit of a work and thus contributes to our insight into the great masters and to our sense of the beautiful.7 Liszt clearly enunciates his respect for Beethoven’s original works in this preface. Despite Liszt’s widely known panache and eccentric personality, his preface shows a humility towards Beethoven. Like Beethoven, Liszt valued the beautiful and the fine details of musical composition. By looking at his many compositions, it seems to be that one of the roles that the finer details play in his works is to challenge the performer. However, like Beethoven, Liszt knew that these finer details make the music beautiful and constitute the being of the work itself, not simply as an addition for difficulty’s sake.

Liszt clearly enunciates his respect for Beethoven’s original works in this preface. Despite Liszt’s widely known panache and eccentric personality, his preface shows a humility towards Beethoven. Like Beethoven, Liszt valued the beautiful and the fine details of musical composition. By looking at his many compositions, it seems to be that one of the roles that the finer details play in his works is to challenge the performer. However, like Beethoven, Liszt knew that these finer details make the music beautiful and constitute the being of the work itself, not simply as an addition for difficulty’s sake.

Figure 1: Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Beethoven Symphony No. 2 D major Op. 36, mvmt I.—Solo piano, mm. 282-283.8

Figure 2: Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36, mvmt I.—Flute, Violin I, II, Viola, Cello/Bass, mm. 282-283.9

Liszt differed from other transcribers in his approach to Beethoven’s work, reflecting the intended performing audience of his transcriptions. Liszt composed and transcribed for expert and expressive pianists to perform. On the other hand, Hummel was influenced by the emergence of the middle class in Europe, and his simplified transcriptions made some of the greatest musical works more accessible to amateur musicians of the rapidly growing middle class, where not only professionals or highly educated pianists could perform these works.10 Beethoven did not write to please or entertain a particular audience—unlike the future transcribers of his works—which gave him the freedom to compose with as much musical complexity and personal influence as he wanted. Beethoven composed in a way that musical complexity came about in a natural and secondary way, unlike future composers like Liszt. On the other hand, Liszt placed high importance on musical complexity because he believed it led itself to musical expertise, creating an advantage for Liszt’s transcriptions, by enunciating the natural complexity that already existed in Beethoven’s symphony. This is not to corner Beethoven as a composer of complexity, but rather there are commonalities between Beethoven’s compositional style and the style that constitutes virtuosity. Beethoven himself also produced an unpublished arrangement of his Symphony No. 2 for piano, violin and cello.11 The transcriptions of both Beethoven and Liszt were not intended to make the original music more accessible to amateur musicians; if anything was done to the original music, it was done in order to bring out certain musical elements. There is much to say about Beethoven’s own transcription in comparison to both his original score and the transcriptions of future composers, since Beethoven’s transcription provides an almost entirely new perspective on the work. It is steeped in Beethoven’s character and parallels elements that are seen in his later chamber works. While Liszt provides an almost exact harmonic transcription of the symphony and uses the transcriptions as a means to explore the essence of Beethoven, Beethoven himself explores the different sounds of the work without creating an exact replication of the original score. For example, in the recapitulation of the first movement, Liszt precisely transferred harmonies from the original score into his transcription, while Beethoven altered harmonies along with rhythms and sonorities.12 Each composer interpreted this section differently to highlight particular elements. For Beethoven, this alteration allowed him to explore a different possibility than what was originally composed while Liszt prioritized the embodiment of what Beethoven originally wrote.

For a time, Liszt paused his work on transcribing Beethoven’s symphonies, but he was compelled to resume the work in 1863, when he received newly engraved scores of Beethoven’s symphonies from publishers Breitkopf and Härtel, who encouraged him to finish the transcriptions.13 In response to this call for a quicker pace by Breitkopf, Liszt addressed the fact that it would be a difficult undertaking to bring to life the “breath and soul, the resonance and power, the fullness and inspiration, the color and accent of such music”14 through the piano keys. Beethoven, in all his genius, decided to compose the melodies and musical ideas of Symphony No. 2 particularly for an orchestra, not a piano. Thus, the life that the orchestra brings to the music, which he was fully conscious of when creating the symphony, is inherent to the nature of the piece and a transcription for a different instrument or a set of instruments can make it difficult to embrace this element. The spirit of the orchestra is integral to the essence of the work. Fully aware of this limitation, Liszt expressed to Breitkopf in August 1863 that he planned to remedy this by channeling the “spirit of the performer [into] the effects of the orchestra, and to make evident, in the narrow limits of the piano, the different sonorities and nuances.”15 Not only was Liszt aware of the difficulty of translating Beethoven’s musical genius as is, but he recognized that this genius lay in his treatment of instruments and sounds. Beethoven used every possible resource in his writing, including the particularities of the orchestra, to articulate his musical intentions. For Liszt, to neglect this element would be to follow along the path of previous transcribers, who wrote in a “manner up to now, routine.”16 Liszt was successful in addressing the importance of instruments by often naming the instruments that played melodies or accompaniments in the original score, on the piano score. In the same letter to Breitkopf, Liszt admits that referencing these instruments in the score is not enough to “transplant the magic of the orchestra to the piano; nevertheless I do not consider them superfluous.”17 The simple tactic of indicating instruments provides a clear indication to the performer that these transcriptions are ultimately reflections of Beethoven’s artistry, and not of Liszt’s.

Liszt’s focus on the instruments and their contribution to the essence of the symphony itself reveals how the respective instrument sections are distributed throughout the transcribed score. In measures. 1-3 of the first movement’s Adagio molto, Liszt distributes the oboe part to the right hand and the bassoon part in the left hand. In measure 6, Liszt provides an ossia, an alternative passage, for the left hand, in which he adds an acciaccatura18 before the last beat (Figure 3). Liszt adds this to better prepare the pianist for the sforzando,19 which is an important dramatic element key to Beethoven’s style. It does not detract or distract from the melody, but rather emphasizes the importance of Beethoven’s sforzandos. Liszt thus found a way to ensure that most of Beethoven’s fine details were brought out through the transcription.

Figure 3: Liszt: Beethoven Symphony No. 2 D major Op. 36, mvmt I.—Solo piano, m. 6.20

Similarly, Liszt accurately places all of Beethoven’s original performance markings into his transcription, including sforzandos, accents, articulations, and notably Beethoven’s crescendos that lead to piano. Additionally, Liszt provides further performance markings, such as marcato in measure 88.21 In the context of measure 88, this performance marking emphasizes the importance of the syncopated off-beat accents of the original score. In the original score, only the second violins play this from measure 88 to measure 96. Liszt puts these syncopated off-beat accents in the right hand in measures 88-89. By putting the syncopated off-beat accents in the right hand, Liszt emphasizes this rhythm to make it prominent, compared to the original score where it is not clearly heard, although keeping the momentum of the melody driving forward, as a result of being placed in the thick texture of other instruments. Since the syncopated off-beat accents are originally written as supporting material, by putting this part in the right hand, Liszt incorporates a technical difficulty, perfect for his virtuosic approach. Traditionally, the left hand for classical piano plays rhythms and harmony, while the right hand plays the melody. In this way, the performance marking helps the performer to understand where the left-hand melody fits against these syncopated off-beat accents.

Liszt also utilizes the registers of the piano to replicate the musical contrast that Beethoven originally created through the sounds of the orchestra. For example, in measure 63, Beethoven originally doubled the melody between the first and second violins (Figure 4), but in Liszt’s transcription (Figure 5), the highest voice is that of the second violins. However, in measure 65, Beethoven repeats the same phrase, with the same instruments, in the same octave, as measure 63. Liszt presents measure 65 in the same octave as Beethoven. Where Beethoven employed the sonorities of orchestral instruments to create contrast when repeating phrases, Liszt avoided exact repetition of the phrase, a distinct shift from Beethoven’s style which tended to build continuously upon already-introduced musical material by taking advantage of the different registers of the piano, creating contrast. This gives the effect of the phrase being passed around the orchestra. Thus, we see Liszt’s dedication to bring out the character of Beethoven through the piano transcription. Through Liszt’s transcription, one’s understanding of this passage is enhanced because Liszt draws attention to this passage’s being built up to the development section.

Figure 4: Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 D Major, Op. 36, mvmt I.—Violin I, II, Viola, Cello/Bass, measure 63.22

Figure 5: Liszt: Beethoven Symphony No. 2 D major Op. 36, mvmt I.—Solo piano, measures 61, 65.23

To conclude, Liszt artfully transcribes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 through the use of a full range of piano functions. While Liszt’s piece is labeled as a transcription, the attention to the fine detail of Beethoven’s original score justifies it as worthy of being considered a “musical translation,” because what Liszt accomplished was more than merely replicate the notes; he rather captured the essence of Beethoven’s masterwork into the piano. Liszt embraced the intricacies of Beethoven’s work and made them work within the limits of the piano by conscious inclusion and emphasis of Beethoven’s fine details, preserving this valuable essence of Beethoven. Liszt’s transcription is also more than simply an interpretation because Liszt considered all of the fine details of the original work as a part of the nature of the work itself.

Liszt was no doubt a virtuosic pianist and composer; yet in a novel way he showcases his expertise as a composer and performer through his ability to replicate the particulars of the symphony by only using the piano. Thus, it can be thought that Liszt undertook the challenge of transcribing all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies not necessarily because of the technical challenge of reducing eleven parts into two hands, but because of the intellectual challenge of engaging and replicating the essence of Beethoven’s masterwork in an innovative yet truthful way. In this way, Liszt upholds and exemplifies the principles of Romanticism, because he goes beyond merely playing the notes. Liszt seeks to reengage with Beethoven’s work in a positive way by exploring the complexity of the original symphony. Liszt’s transcription pursues Beethoven’s exploration of the beautiful, and through a new presentation of the original music, the work seems to transcend reality. A pianist who courageously undertakes this work must be prepared to study Beethoven’s original work to fully understand Liszt’s artistic choices and must ultimately, like Liszt, be prepared to perform a work by Beethoven and not by Liszt.

ENDNOTES

1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Heiligenstadt Testament, Letter to Carl and Johann Beethoven, October 6, 1802, University of Hamburg Library, Catalogue record. http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Bio/BiographyHeiligenstadtTestament.html (accessed Feb. 17, 2022).

2. Alan Walker, “Liszt and the Beethoven Symphonies,” in Reflections on Liszt (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 14.

3. Ibid., 11.

4. See, for example, Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven: The Complete Symphony Collection, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Josef Krips, Everest Records, 2008.

5. Aram Kim, “Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Transcriptions of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 36: A Comparison of the Solo Piano and the Piano Quartet

Versions” (Doctoral of Musical Arts dissertation, Univ. of North Texas, 2012), 6.

6. Franz Liszt, “Preface to Beethoven Symphonies Vol. 1, Nos. 1-5,” trans. C.E.R. Mueller, (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1865), 1.

7. Liszt, “Preface,” 1.

8. Johnann Nepomuk Hummel: Beethoven Symphony No. 2 D major Op. 36, mvmt I.—Solo piano, measures 282-83 (Mainz: Schott, n.d.).

9. Ludwig van Beethoven, “Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello Serie 11, No. 90” (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, n.d.), 281-98.

10. Kim, “Johann Nepomuk Hummel,” 5.

11. Beethoven, “Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello”.

12. Walker, “Reflections,” 17.

13. Liszt, “Preface,” 1.

14. Ibid., 1.

15. Ibid.

16. Walker, “Reflections,” 17.

17. Liszt, “Preface,” 1.

18. An acciaccatura is a musical ornament that refers to a set of notes played quickly before or after the main note of the melody.

19. A sforzando is a dynamic marking in music that instructs for the notes to be played with a sudden emphasis and is used within a dynamic range that has already been indicated.

20.Franz Liszt, “Beethoven Symphonies Transcribed for Solo Piano,” Vol. 1, (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1865), mvmt. 1, measure 6.

21. The articulation marking of marcato indicates that the passage is to be played with accentuation.

22. Ludwig van Beethoven, “Symphony No. 2 D Major, Op. 36, mvmt I” (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, n.d.), measure 63.

23. Ibid., m.65.

Report abuse