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The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt

This thesis sets out to investigate the musical and Romantic ideas that may have influenced Liszt during the composition of the three versions of the 'Transcendental' Etudes in relation to the pianistic and musical evolution of the work. The musical and pianistic content of the juvenile etude pour l...

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Main Author: Low, Michael Meow Yin
Other Authors: Hofmeyr, Hendrik
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: College of Music 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Low, Michael Meow Yin
author2 Hofmeyr, Hendrik
author_browse Hofmeyr, Hendrik
Low, Michael Meow Yin
author_facet Hofmeyr, Hendrik
Low, Michael Meow Yin
author_sort Low, Michael Meow Yin
collection Thesis
description This thesis sets out to investigate the musical and Romantic ideas that may have influenced Liszt during the composition of the three versions of the 'Transcendental' Etudes in relation to the pianistic and musical evolution of the work. The musical and pianistic content of the juvenile etude pour le piano en douze exercices (1827) takes after the didactic exercises of Karl Czerny. The intermediate version, known as the Grandes Ãtudes (1839), was conceived at the height of Liszt's performing career and develops the principal thematic ideas of its predecessor whilst incorporating the virtuoso piano technique developed by Liszt's contemporaries, Thalberg and Chopin, as well as the advanced chromaticism characteristics of the latter's music. Crucial to the realisation of the intermediate version with its almost superhuman technical demands is also the influence of Paganini. The final version entitled etudes d'execution trancendente (1852) features a facilitation of some of the technically most demanding passages, as well as the addition of programmatic titles to ten of the twelve etudes. The relationship between programmatic intention and changes to the musical content is not as direct a one as may be supposed, since the vast majority of the radical changes to the musical content did not occur with the (explicit) addition of programmatic/descriptive intention in 1852, but rather in the 1839 version. This poses the question of whether the intermediate version was already implicitly programmatic/descriptive in intention, or whether the titles of the 1852 version were mere 'afterthoughts', added to works that had been transformed for other reasons. The balance of evidence gathered by the author supports the former view.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:51:52.260Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher College of Music
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8254 The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt Low, Michael Meow Yin Hofmeyr, Hendrik Herbst, Anri Music This thesis sets out to investigate the musical and Romantic ideas that may have influenced Liszt during the composition of the three versions of the 'Transcendental' Etudes in relation to the pianistic and musical evolution of the work. The musical and pianistic content of the juvenile etude pour le piano en douze exercices (1827) takes after the didactic exercises of Karl Czerny. The intermediate version, known as the Grandes Ãtudes (1839), was conceived at the height of Liszt's performing career and develops the principal thematic ideas of its predecessor whilst incorporating the virtuoso piano technique developed by Liszt's contemporaries, Thalberg and Chopin, as well as the advanced chromaticism characteristics of the latter's music. Crucial to the realisation of the intermediate version with its almost superhuman technical demands is also the influence of Paganini. The final version entitled etudes d'execution trancendente (1852) features a facilitation of some of the technically most demanding passages, as well as the addition of programmatic titles to ten of the twelve etudes. The relationship between programmatic intention and changes to the musical content is not as direct a one as may be supposed, since the vast majority of the radical changes to the musical content did not occur with the (explicit) addition of programmatic/descriptive intention in 1852, but rather in the 1839 version. This poses the question of whether the intermediate version was already implicitly programmatic/descriptive in intention, or whether the titles of the 1852 version were mere 'afterthoughts', added to works that had been transformed for other reasons. The balance of evidence gathered by the author supports the former view. 2014-10-08T09:38:55Z 2014-10-08T09:38:55Z 2009 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8254 eng application/pdf College of Music Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Music
Low, Michael Meow Yin
The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
title_full The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
title_fullStr The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
title_full_unstemmed The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
title_short The influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of Franz Liszt
title_sort influence of romanticism on the evolution of the transcendental etudes of franz liszt
topic Music
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8254
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