Hyperion Records

Liszt arranged for all twelve of his Weimar-period symphonic poems to be published in versions for solo piano, each one under the name of one of his young protégés as putative arranger. Liszt frequently made many anonymous contributions and improvements to such arrangements. In the case of Mazeppa we probably have a case of a rejected effort by Theodor Forchhammer. Forchhammer's versions of Tasso, Heroïde funèbre and Hamlet all appeared in the Breitkopf edition of the twelve pieces, but the published version of Mazeppa is that of Ludwig Stark, who also arranged Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, Prometheus, Festklänge, and Hunnenschlacht. (The other pieces were arranged by Karl Klausner – Les préludes, Arthur Hahn – Die Ideale – and Friedrich Spiro – Orpheus and Hungaria. Of course, Liszt was himself the sole arranger of his later symphonic poem Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe. The manuscript of the unpublished Forchhammer version is to be found in the Liszt Research Centre in Budapest, and thanks are due to Mária Eckhardt for arranging for the present writer to study it in situ and to bring away a copy of it. The manuscript is full of Liszt's corrections, although from time to time these are written in shorthand – in parallel passages, for example – and at one point at the very end he has deleted Forchhammer's text for four bars without indicating its replacement, but that could easily be supplied with reference to the orchestral score.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1999