Hear Liszt revise ‘Au bord d'une source’ in real time (side-by-side versions)

This video contrasts the original “Au bord d’une source” from Album d'un voyageur (1834–1838), played on an 1835 Pleyel piano, with Liszt’s transformative revision that appeared in Années de pèlerinage (1848–1854), played on an 1852 Streicher piano, plus a bonus coda that Liszt added in 1863 played on an 1899 Bechstein. With the exception of the last one, the pianos that I chose (from Pianoteq) represent the time of composition/revision rather than the exact instruments that Liszt would have composed and played on. Nonetheless, had someone bought these works off the shelf at their times of publication, it is plausible that their instruments sounded similar to those heard in this video, and that’s pretty cool.

Liszt’s revisions in the second version are primarily textural rather than structural: rolling bass arpeggios are replaced by staccato hand crossings in the upper register, the cadenzas are refined and more varied, and the piece is overall much easier to play with a renewed sparkle to its effect. That being said, I have always had a soft spot for the first version and it certainly deserves a hearing every once in a while or to complement other pieces from Liszt’s early virtuoso period. Both versions capture, by different means, the poetic excerpt from Schiller that Liszt quotes in the epigraph: “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.”

Liszt very much admired the Roman pianist and composer Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914), whom he taught in the 1860s. Before Sgambati was to perform a concert featuring Au bord d’une source in December 1863, Liszt sent him a note on which he sketched a meditative addendum for the final coda, which is hardly ever heard but presented here on an 1899 Bechstein piano (this is the next closest 19th-century piano in Pianoteq’s library, excluding the 1858 NY Steinway square piano that didn’t quite fit the character needed here).

Franz Liszt - Au bord d'une source
1st version: S.156/3, 1834-1838 (played on an 1835 Pleyel piano)
2nd version: S.160/4 1848-1855 (played on an 1852 Streicher piano)
3rd version/added coda: S160/4bis, 1863 (Played on an 1899 Bechstein piano)

The performance alternates between versions 1 and 2, with the added coda at the very end.

00:00 Title
00:04 Theme
00:42 First cadenza
01:00 Variations set I
01:45 Second cadenza
02:14 Variations set II
03:07 Third cadenza
03:18 Variations set III
03:30 Build & culmination
04:05 Reprise
04:23 Coda
05:09 1863 coda addition

View Liszt’s note in which he wrote the 1863 coda here: archive.org/details/au-bord-dune-source-4bis/mode/…

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