EPISODE 2: "So Much for Originality"
episode 2
"So Much for Originality"
In Episode 2 of Rearranged, a classical music scholar and a pianist look under the hood of Franz Liszt’s solo piano transcriptions of Beethoven’s nine symphonies to discover the vast originality possible in derivative music.
YOUR HOST:
JOURNALIST AND MUSICIAN
LAWRENCE LANAHAN
REARRANGED considers the meaning we take from songs by examining an underappreciated aspect of their creation: the arrangement.
Produced and distributed by Osiris Media.
SHOW NOTES
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Because arrangements are derivative music, based on existing works, they have carried a reputation as second-class music for centuries. Arrangers have been diminished, belittled, insulted, and even sued! In Episode 2 of Rearranged, we’ll discover the astonishing artistry and creativity and, yes, originality in derivative masterworks like Franz Liszt’s rearrangement of all nine Beethoven’s symphonies for solo piano. And we’ll talk to a pianist who has played all nine about the originality he discovered in Liszt transcripts—and the originality he introduced into those transcripts himself.​
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Guests:
Christopher Taylor, pianist, professor of piano, Mead Witter School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Alan Walker, Professor Emeritus, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
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Audio of Alan Walker is from "In Defence of Arrangements," lecture, Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., November 9, 2013, permission granted by author (available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quFtSrro_Xc), and a lecture recorded specifically for this episode, received October 31, 2020.
Thanks to:
- Christopher Taylor
- Alan Walker
- Mom and Dad for having a piano that actually has a malfunctioning D key
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The theme music and other scoring music for Rearranged was written and recorded by Lawrence Lanahan.
Music discussed:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 “Choral," Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra, Warner Classics, 1958/2020.
Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto, S. 434, Piano - Prodiges Saison 6, Paul Ji, Warner Classics, 2020.
Research Notes:
Story of Franz Liszt at Madonna Del Rosario from introduction: Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The final years, 1861-1886, pp. 54-56, Cornell University Press, 1987, https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801484537; Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The virtuoso years, 1811-1847, pp. 71-85, Cornell University Press, 1987. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801494215
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Lina Ramann, Franz Liszt, Artist and Man. 1811-1840, p. 45, W.H, Allen and Company, 1882. Available: https://archive.org/details/franzlisztartist01ramauoft/page/44/mode/2up
"A decade earlier, Liszt had transcribed the Ninth for two pianos—you know, four hands": Liner notes, LISZT, F.: Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Transcription) (Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 21) (Scherbakov), Naxos, 2004. Available: https://www.naxos.com/MainSite/BlurbsReviews/?itemcode=8.557366&catnum=557366&filetype=AboutThisRecording&language=English; p. 13, Luke Dull, "Effective Transcriptions: A Discussion Regarding Technical, Musical, and Practical Approaches for the Modern Marimba," doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, 2014. Available: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/62cc125e-21e0-4828-86f9-0bf45054986e/content.
"Franz Liszt knew what could be arranged and what couldn’t. He later refused to transcribe Beethoven’s string quartets at all, telling the publisher that his initial attempts rendered only, quote 'unplayable or insipid stuff'": Alan Walker, in Beethoven Symphonies No. 6-9, Transcribed for Solo Piano by Franz Liszt, Courier Corporation, 2001, pp. viii-ix.
"For instance, right above each piano line, he added a transcription of Beethoven’s choral parts": Dull, p. 14
“Until the late 1700s” to “thus subject to copyright laws”: from Elena Pons Capdevila, “Arranging the Canon: keyboard arrangements, publishing practices and the appropriation of musical classics, 1770-1810,” doctoral dissertation, Royal Holloway University of London, April 2017.
"According to one apocryphal tale, as Beethoven watched a performance of another composer’s opera, he reacted to a funeral march in that opera by saying, 'How beautiful! I must compose that!'”: Edgar Istel and Theodore Baker, "Beethoven's 'Leonore' and 'Fidelio'," The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1921), p. 227; Rita Steblin, "Who Died? The Funeral March in Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony," The Musical Quarterly, Spring, 2006, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Spring, 2006), p. 74.
"Do Arrangers Destroy or Create?": Alan Walker, New York Times, March 16, 2003, Section 2, Page 30. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/arts/music-do-arrangers-destroy-or-create.html