Hyperion Records

These three songs were printed with alternative texts: with Die Gestirne, the third of the four Geistliche Lieder, the whole introduction is rewritten for a piano with a short compass, but Liszt takes the opportunity to transcribe the passage in a wholly new way. The main body of the song is unchanged until the last page, where the grandeur is deliberately hushed for two bars which hark back to the texture of the introduction. In the alternative text to the first version of Meeresstille, the bass tremolos and chromatic figures are replaced with simple chords. And in the ossia passages to the first version of Die Forelle, the more virtuosic demands are modified with a completely new solution to the penultimate stanza.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1995