Hyperion Records

Liszt spent much time preparing the Troisième année de pèlerinage (recorded in Volume 12), and all but one of the pieces exist in earlier versions (see Volumes 55 and 56). The version of Angelus! offered here is really the first clean copy of the draft version, and the manuscript is dated 2 October, 1877, Villa d’Este, and bears a dedication to Liszt’s granddaughter Daniela von Bülow. The intermediate version of Sunt lacrymae rerum was made by Liszt altering and pasting over various passages in a fair copy of the first version. It is strikingly different from the original and yet quite at variance with the final published text. So, too, does the first version of Sursum corda strike out in quite a different direction from its famous successor, and it remains fascinating to see Liszt’s imagination at work. It is not that the later versions are necessarily better or worse, but that a completely different musical journey is often made on the basis of the same material.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 2002