Hyperion Records

The Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien—or ‘Hungarian Fantasy’, as it is commonly known—bears an ineluctable kinship with the Rapsodie hongroise No XIV, but it was conceived before that work, and diverges from it in many important particulars, the first and foremost amongst which is the tonality: the Fantasy is in E minor, the Rhapsody in F minor. Various reworkings in the Rhapsody proceeded at a different time and pace for those of the Fantasy so, although the Fantasy was the second of the two works to be published, it was the first to achieve its final form. The background material for the piece was the tenth of the Magyar Dalok and the Magyar Rapszódia No 21, S242/10 and 21. Liszt took the Magyar Rapszódia and arranged it for piano and orchestra, adding an extra bar of timpani roll to get things under way, and amplifying the cadenzas in such a way as to recall Magyar Dal No 10. A new cadenza leads to the main theme of the piece, since identified as the Hungarian folksong Mohacs Field. This theme is presented three times—from the piano, from the trumpet and then other wind instruments with an agile piano accompaniment, and from the full orchestra. The Molto adagio which follows derives from the Magyar Dal No 10, as does the succeeding material. Music in common with the fourteenth Rhapsody but deriving directly in this instance from Magyar Rapszódia No 21 is the theme marked Allegretto alla Zingarese, which leads to a reprise in D flat major of Mohacs Field. After a cadenza based on this theme, but punctuated by fragments of the Magyar Dal on clarinet and flute, a new theme is presented which will carry the work almost to the end—labelled Koltoi Csárdás in the Magyar Rapszódia. At the Prestissimo coda all the themes are brought together, and in this recording, the curious tradition of slowing the last statements of Mohacs Field to something less than a quarter of Liszt’s required continuation in tempo prestissimo is deliberately avoided.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1998