Hyperion Records

The Chanson du Béarn is a Béarnaise folk song ‘La haût sus las mountagnes’ (‘High up on the mountains’). On the first page of the music, the title is given as ‘Pastorale du Béarn’. (Both works were reprinted by the British Liszt Society in their 1991 Journal.) The first, a ballad with the most wistful harmonization, is treated to variations in the manner of many of Liszt’s song transcriptions, and the second is given just one variation, with an optional coda—full of tremolos and new harmony—which is much too good to be omitted.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1992