Hyperion Records

Zwei Lieder: Die Rose, it will be remembered, was the first Schubert song which Liszt transcribed. The reissued version of it has dozens of differences, mostly minor matters of texture, but with a slightly extended version of the cadenza and coda. The new version was published with Liszt’s transcription of Lob der Tränen (‘In praise of tears’, D711b), a sensitive, straightforward arrangement of Schubert’s touching setting of Schlegel’s eulogy to the power of tears to bring renewal and redemption. In Liszt’s version the melody is first presented in the tenor, with the left hand playing alone, rising one octave and then two in the remaining verses.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1995