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Liszt’s so-called simplified versions somehow never manage to have any real understanding of the limitations of the amateur attached to them. The three Ungarische National-Melodien (Im leichten Style bearbeitet) make some attempt by transposing the first two numbers down a semitone. But there remain complications in the third which would have ensured that no great-aunt’s drawing-room piano would ever have been likely to sport a well-thumbed copy. The thirteenth of the Magyar Rapszódiák also appeared in a simplified version as Ungarische National-Melodie, and whilst it is by no means as fiendishly difficult as the concert version, neither is it children’s work.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1998