From Voice to Piano: Liszt's transcriptions of Ständchen and Widmung

Abstract

This research highlights a historically overlooked subgenre of Franz Liszt's piano works: the song transcriptions. Although often neglected in performance, research and recording, Liszt's song transcriptions offer insight into his experience as accompanist and as a composer of songs. The song transcriptions are more intimate in nature compared to Liszt's operatic paraphrases and demonstrate Liszt's compositional abilities in a way not evident in his other piano works. A detailed examination of their genesis followed by a side-by-side comparison of both Ständchen by Schubert and Widmung by Schumann with Liszt's transcriptions will provide better insight into how they represent Liszt as a composer, pianist and lover of Lieder.