>> David Plylar: All right.
Good morning everybody.
Thank you so much
for being here.
It's just really nice to have,
this is just the right amount
of people I think to do just
a bit of an more intimate look
at some of the manuscript
acquisitions that we've gotten
in the music division in
the past about three years.
My name is David Plylar.
I'm in the concert office
of the music division,
but I have a great interest in
particularly in keyboard music,
but also in music of the 19th
century, and 20th centuries.
And it just so happens that a
lot of our recent acquisitions
in the music division had been
a very significant pieces mostly
out of the 19th century,
but some from the 18th
century, and beyond.
So initially the idea for this
talk was going to be to speak
about a whole wide range of
them, and now what I found is
that we have so many amazing,
interesting new things
that there's really, you know,
five or six talks in there.
[Laughs] And so I don't --
we don't have enough
time to hit everything.
So I decided to whittle it
down to just the keyboard
music from recent years.
So, you know, stay tuned
for another time when one
of our curators might
speak about some
of our other amazing
acquisitions, including songs
or [inaudible] works
and other things.
I'm probably going to
stay seated a bit more
than usual today just because
of my back is acting up a bit,
so please forgive me for that.
But what I'd like to do is
introduce you to a number
of these manuscripts, and
show just a few things
about each one.
What they tell us
about the piece.
What they tell us
about, you know,
maybe the circumstances
surrounding its composition,
and also just anything else
that might be of interest.
It's not comprehensive
whatsoever.
Every time I glance at these
manuscripts, I keep finding new
and interesting things.
So they're really -- this is
really kind of an invitation
for scholars to come and take
a look, but also for the public
to come and take a look at
these really interesting pieces
of music.
So we're going to go
in chronological order
between the things that
we have with us today.
So what we'll have on the
tasting menu, as it were,
we'll have a Haydn Capriccio,
an early, probably one
of the best known of his early
keyboard works from 1765.
We'll then have Beethoven
sketches
after the Hammerklavier
Sonata, 1817, '18, I think.
And this is -- these are
new sketches that we have
that supplement our older
sketches that we already had
in our [inaudible] collection.
So this is also a
recent purchase.
We'll take a look at those.
Then we'll look at two
Mendelssohn's songs
without words, and
then we'll look
at three pretty interesting
Liszt of pieces.
Two of which you may know.
One of which you probably don't
unless you're a real Liszt nut,
but one of them is from
the constellations.
One of them is one of the Lebis
Traume or an early version
of one of the Lebis Traume.
And then the other
one is an elegy.
And then lastly, we'll hit we
just recently purchased numbers
two and three of
Opus 119 by Brahms.
And so we'll focus
more on the second one,
and you'll see the reason why
I'm choosing these particular
pieces as we get to them.
So let's start with the Hadyn.
One of the things that's nice
about this particular manuscript
as it gives us a lot
of interesting material
on the front page.
So first of all, you'll notice
that title is spelled with one C
for Capriccio, whereas
typically it's with two,
but that's just one
of those things.
And then there's almost
indecipherable something written
underneath it.
And then there's some other
indecipherable [laughs]
that seemed to be there.
They are decipherable,
and we'll talk about that.
So oftentimes we'll
look at when looking
at these manuscripts we'll
be discussing how do we come
to get them.
How do we know they're
authentic,
those types of things.
In this case is kind of almost
a case study in one of the ways
that we might determine that
it's an authentic type of thing.
I should say that I'm
not an expert in this.
So this is just what I'm
gleaning from the page.
You do see a signature there
that says Del Giuseppe Haydn,
and then M-P-P-R-I-A,
which means Manu Propria.
So meaning ih his own hand,
and then 765, meaning 1765.
So that's, you know,
that's something,
and then underneath it says
in somebody else's
hand Handschrift.
We then look at the
what's written
at the bottom of the page.
And it's somebody saying,
the guy who wrote
Handschrift I know him.
He's the [inaudible] and
he's the one who wrote this.
He was a friend of
Haydn's and knew him.
And so we can take his word
that this was in Haydn's hand,
because he said it was, and
I knew that he's the one
who wrote the word
Handschrift there.
So that's also on this title
page of the manuscript.
And then if you go to the
upper right corner of the top
of this title page, you'll
see a very interesting thing.
This is -- it's supposed to
be in Tobias Haslinger's hand,
and he was a major
publisher and composer.
And so this was number
39 from his collection
of manuscripts that he had.
So we knew that he had it at one
point, and stamped on the front.
Owners tend to write on
these things quite a bit,
as you might notice.
So then we start to look
at these, there's kind
of this history of different
people who have owned it,
not necessarily in
this order actually,
it's slightly out of order.
But an interesting thing
about this manuscript is
at one point it was
actually at the Library
of Congress before now.
And this was when it was part
of Casella Saltinggolf's
collection.
It then left to the
library to our dismay,
and only now is returning,
and is actually now a part
of our Saltinggolf's
collection on its return.
So that's just a kind of
a quick, brief overview
of what you get from
this title page.
So underneath that title page,
or sorry, underneath that title
of Capriccio, it's a
little bit hard to read,
but it says [foreign language].
And so basically that means
it takes eight butchers.
And so what this is
referring to is this is based
on an Austrian folk tune.
And so Haydn is, you know,
one of the things I
don't think you'd get --
he does get credit
for it, but not enough
as he had a really
good sense of humor.
And so he basically wrote a
Capriccio about castrating hogs.
And so that's kind of
what this is about.
Just a couple of
other things that come
through on this manuscript,
and you'll have to take a look
at this up on stage
after this talk.
There are places
where there is copying
over with what is
clearly a different ink.
It looks like at first it might
look like it was a second dip
in the inkwell or
something like that,
but it's deviates quite
a bit from the sepia tone
that you'll see with
the particular ink
in this manuscript.
So it's tracing over
is what I think,
because there's enough places
where there's double stems
and things like that.
So I'm not sure if this
was Hadyn doing it.
I suspect maybe it was,
because it seems pretty close
to what was there,
but I don't know.
But that would be something
that may be somebody would
be able to look into that.
But that's sometimes
something that people will look
for on manuscripts are these
points of deviation between,
you know, what's kind of
established as a norm,
and when it changes, because
it can also be in addition
to showing potentially
another person's hand involved,
that type of deviation can
also delineate a timeline
when somebody is making changes.
So you'll see this especially
in a publisher proofs,
and things like that,
that they'll be different
colors used, like in crayon
or other things to kind
of show different types,
either different types
of edits or edits
that happen in one pass.
So it's kind of an interesting
thing to start to see, you know,
three or four different
colors that are pencil
or different colors of ink
on the same manuscript,
because you might be able
to reconstruct, you know,
with some degree of speculation
in what order those types
of changes were made.
So now we're going to
move on to a Beethoven.
So as I mentioned, we already,
we do have several
sketches already
in our collection related
to the Hammerklavier Sonata.
In particular in that case,
the finale, the last movement.
The new sketches that we have
are from the third movement,
so this is the slow movement.
And so what I thought
I'd do is just play
through the entire
Jammerklavier Sonata twice,
so you can get a sense
of how, you know, that,
[laughs] so don't worry.
I won't, I'm not going to
even play any of it actually,
because what you can see here is
that these sketches are
identifiable as it related
to this piece, but not
extremely specific in terms
of what they might
be referring to.
So I'll show just a couple
of examples on the screen
so that you can see what
it is that makes one see
that these are related
to the Hammerklavier.
I don't know how well people
know this particular movement
of the Hammerklavier, but the
piece it's a giant movement.
So there's about 20 minutes
in length, and it consists
of a number of a number of --
it's extraordinarily beautiful.
I think one of his most
beautiful, slow movements.
It has a lot of different
textures on the piano
that are I think
quite forward looking,
and also quite distinctive.
So what we find in
this particular set
of sketches are kind
of literally sketches
or gestures toward
those final gestures
that are recognizable
in the final piece.
So that base pattern that you
just saw on this page, whoops,
that we just see those
little, basically a chord.
And it might sound like
something like this.
[ Music ]
I'm assuming that he's just
not giving the key there.
And so I was playing it
as it is in the piece.
You then see that that same
figure is used now underneath
some ideas for melodies,
and also for a comp
of the mental figures.
And just to make it clear, I've
circled those little base things
that were on that previous page,
so you can see what was there.
So it's trying to
give some context,
but still very sparse,
not very clear.
Yet, each of these does gesture
to different points
in the piece.
Sometimes it's something like
this, which is there are points
where there's the melody is
laid out in just bare octaves,
and the B-A-R-E, not
B-E-A-R in the Beethoven.
And so there's gestures
towards that.
Then you'll see certain
things that he does,
alternating figures where
he doesn't keep the details
of what's happening,
you know, in those gaps,
but there's stuff
going on in those gaps.
And so a lot of the times,
actually what I found is
that he'll put in, sketch
out the [inaudible] mental
materials, knowing what the,
what I suspect is that he just
knew what the melodic components
were going to be,
because it was based
on this large set of variations.
So he probably just doesn't
need to mark that down
as a marker at this point.
That's again, speculation, but
this is kind of what one does
with sketchy material.
So in any case, that's all I'm
going to say about the Beethoven
for today, but these are
interesting to take a look at.
There happened to be a lot of
Hammerklavier sketches around,
and so you can --
all around the world,
so they've never really --
I don't know that
they've all been gathered
into one place ever, and even
just for people to take a look
at in book form, but
actually that's probably many.
Anyway, they continue
to be found and scarfed
up by different libraries
and institutions.
We should mention that we
also have several other major
Beethoven works, but one
of our crown jewels is
the Opus 109 Sonata.
So that's one where we
have the full Sonata.
So moving on to our
Mendelssohn acquisitions.
We have the Library of Congress
has I think four or five
of the songs without words.
Two of them are in
the [inaudible] album.
We have these two new
ones that I'm going
to speak about shortly.
And then we also have or
another recent acquisition
that I didn't pull out for today
are some edited forms where we
of printed score
that Mendelssohn has
annotated with his changes.
So those are the kinds of things
that are really interesting
for researchers to
learn more about,
to be able to see what
a composer is fixing.
Are they just fixing mistakes?
Are they making substantive
changes?
Those are the types of
things that we like to see.
And one of the things
that we learn,
and I think we'll see this here,
is that it's really hard to say
with much confidence
that there's any one
authoritative source
for a lot of pieces.
So a lot of people think,
well, if the manuscript,
it's in their hand, that must
be the be all, end all of what,
you know, what we know
what the composer wanted.
Well, these composers were, many
of them involved in the process
of putting a piece
through publication.
And so there would be different
things that would happen
at those various stages.
Sometimes that completely
changed the course of a work.
Sometimes if they aren't careful
mistakes will creep into it
at the printing stage,
and they'll be handed
down as gospel.
But then, you know, so
it, but there, you know,
potentially incorrect.
We'll have a good example
of that with the Brahms.
So in any case, with
Mendelssohn the manuscripts
that we have are beautiful.
I speak with my colleague
Ray about this earlier, this,
you know, his handwriting is
just a pleasure to look at,
as you can tell by the
signature that we have from one
of the songs without words
that we have over here
on the Opus 62 Number
5, Gondaleed.
And so they look perfect.
Oops. I'm going backwards
this way.
They look like perfect
on the page.
Like there's not really
anything out of place,
but what I discovered with Opus
62 Number 5 in particular as is
that there's some
missing material.
So if you'll take a look at
that, there's a big red arrow
in the midst of that first
page of the manuscript there.
And I've just kind of put in
brackets on the right side
of the screen is a
whole chunk of material
that Mendelssohn later
added to the piece.
And it ends up balancing
it out a bit better,
but there's another interesting
difference, and this happens
at the very beginning
of the piece,
and it's a little
bit hard to see.
I don't think I have
a close-up of it now.
it's a little bit
difficult to see,
but basically the
beginning is truncated
from what it is in
the final version.
So I'm just going to --
I'm gonna play just a
very little bit of this
so you can hear what
I'm talking about,
and what those differences
might be.
So here's first how
it would start
as Mendelssohn wrote
it in this manuscript.
[ Music ]
Not exactly that part,
but that's the point was
that it goes into it very
quickly, so it's just --
[ Music ]
So there's almost no time
before that A comes in up above.
In the final published
version this is how it is.
[ Music ]
It's a subtle thing, but
it's the kind of thing
that composers would do as they
keep thinking about a piece,
and find ways to
better established.
So what basically he did was
he added four attack points
for a total of five notes.
It works out because
one of them is a dyad,
but just to give a little bit
more of that rocking motion,
these are the famous
Venetian Gondola songs
that he incorporated into
these songs without words.
So he thought better of what
he had originally to kind
of create a greater
sense of this.
So then as it keeps going I'll
show you what he goes from,
and then I'll show you
what he changed it to.
And this is just a
little bit into the piece.
If you're looking, it's just,
it's on that second
stave on the left.
[ Music ]
And so on.
But what he left out
was the second iteration
of the main theme.
So the first time
that you hear it,
it's like this just basically.
[ Music ]
And it comes back like this.
[ Music ]
It's some octaves
and stuff in the top.
So it's a repetition.
It's a further establishment
of the theme,
but it's not in the manuscript.
So in this case, you know, I
don't know the full history of,
you know, this piece from
this point to its publication,
but presumably, and
this was in 1842,
I think that would have
been something that was
of course authorized
by Mendelssohn,
and the changes are probably
for the better in this case.
I hesitate to make those
types of value judgments only
because there are a lot
of cases where the types
of changes are just
alternatives as opposed
to really necessarily
inherently superior.
So especially when we get to the
Liszt, but we'll see about that.
So that's a little
bit about this piece.
I won't play this one just
because it's another --
it's a bit more of a
straightforward one
from C major, but about the
same time, actually 1842.
I can't remember whether this
one is a few months before
or after the other one
that we just looked at.
But this is another example
of Mendelssohn perfect,
except that as you noticed
towards the bottom of the page.
I'm willing to bet that
Mendelssohn thought,
I wish I had, you know, 18
stave paper right at that point
when he hit that bottom.
But now those are the kinds
of things I like to think
about that composers
like, you know,
just that there's a practical
element of, you know,
when they're making these
fine copies that, you know,
it's just kind of one of those
things, but you don't want
to rewrite it because it's
a laborious task to have
to write everything down.
Okay. So we're going
to move on to some
of our recent Liszt
acquisitions.
These ones are fascinating,
because in Liszt's case they
tend to be multiple versions
of the same piece
across a span of years.
That's generally what happens.
In these cases they're a couple
of different things happening.
So I'm going to start with
a piece called Madrigal.
Has anybody ever heard
of a Liszt madrigal?
Probably not, because --
but you probably have heard
of the constellations.
The famous third one in
D flat everybody knows.
This is not that famous
one, but it's the fifth one,
which is the set as a whole
is played quite a bit.
A lot of people know them.
This is the first version
of that fifth constellation.
And so this is coming from,
it's actually also the
earliest known part of that set.
I think this one
dates from 1844,
and the constellations
themselves have a --
I won't get into the
full history of them,
but essentially get published
by 1850, but in 1848 and '49,
they go through two
different versions.
One version that was not
published at the time
that Liszt's are retracted
basically, and then and replaced
with the final version
that everybody knows.
But so this one was being
prepped for publication.
And in this case
this is an example
of a non holograph manuscript.
By that I just mean not
in the hand of Liszt's,
although there are
some annotations
that are in Liszt hand.
It's thought that the author
of, sorry, not the author,
but the copyist involved
with this one is August Conrady
[phonetic], who was an associate
of Liszt's, and who
had it was thought
to have been the
person who drafted this.
So when you see it on
the table, you'll notice
that it's a very
different style of writing,
and one that is meant to be
very clear, because it's meant
to be a conveying exactly
what's there to you know,
the publisher that's coming.
So what I wanted to show you,
there's some interesting things
that happened with this.
This piece was actually
recently published.
A version of this manuscript was
published within a [inaudible].
And it was a long running
a publication of all
of Liszt's piano works.
And hopefully eventually they'll
get to all the other stuff too.
But it was based, the addition
was based on our manuscript
that we have back when
it was in private hands,
and before it came
to the library.
But what's interesting about it
is that there's some mistakes
in the published form.
And so this is another good
reason why it's always good
to have access to that original
source whenever you can.
And it's always better for them,
in my opinion, I'm a bit biased
for them to be in a
public institution
where researchers have
that access as opposed
to in the hands of
a private collector.
Because it's difficult to go
back and always, you know,
make assessments for, you
know, purposes of scholarship.
But for what we're
looking at now,
I just want to show you a
little bit about this evolution
from a starting point,
starting version of the Madrigal
up to the final version.
I'm not going to be playing the
full pieces, but I'm just going
to show you some different
things about each piece,
and about how Liszt adapted
the work to kind of meet to end
up with a very different
piece in the end
than what he started with.
So we will start
with a comparison
of just the main theme to
the, sorry, I'm pulling it up.
I've got too many papers.
Oops. Yeah.
All right.
So here's the version
of the Madrigal.
I'm just going to play
the opening theme.
There is an introduction that
I will talk about in a minute,
so I'm not gonna play
the introduction.
This is just the
opening main theme.
[ Music ]
Okay. So that's the
opening theme.
And here's the same theme,
but in the final version.
[ Music ]
It's a simpler setting.
This is something that
Liszt did all the time.
His revisions tended
to simplify.
This is the most famously done
with the transcendental etudes,
which were originally
called, you know, the great --
this great set of etudes
that were impossible to play.
And then they became the
easier transcendental etudes.
And vice a versa.
The transcendental Paganini
etudes became the great Paganini
etudes, which were
easier to play.
But he also does it here
for a textural reason.
So the main difference is
that in the earlier
version that we have this.
[ Music ]
We have this baseline
that keeps holding over,
whereas here in the new version.
[ Music ]
It's just kept up in
the middle register.
Now this is not new to
this version actually.
Liszt is simply transplanting
what he does later
in the original version
to the beginning.
And so it's not that -- it's
just kind of a reconfiguring
of the piece so that
it starts off
with this greater
sense of simplicity.
As a couple of other
examples of simplifying,
here are two passages,
passages just to compare.
[ Music ]
There's that.
And then here's the
later version.
[ Music ]
That's not the later version.
That's not Liszt's fault.
[ Music ]
So you see again a
simplification of the compliment
from [music] to just [music].
Again, there's nothing
wrong with the other one.
it's just a different
configuration.
There's also something that's
very different that's much more
dramatic, which is this --
[ Music ]
That's a line that Liszt just
get rid of in the later version.
I like it.
So that's why I think it's nice
that the original version
exists, so I can hear it.
You know, that's one of the
other things that comes up.
As far as the actual Liszt
annotations on this manuscript,
I've circled it on this
screen, so you can see one
of the main ones,
which is the crossing
out of a couple of notes.
Now, it might not seem
like this is a big deal,
and maybe in the grand scheme
of things it's not a big deal.
But this particular transitional
idea, he has no fewer
than like three different,
three or four different types
of ways of dealing with it.
So in the original version
you would have heard the --
I'll give you the several
different versions,
and then I'll --
they're in sequence.
So the original would be the
triplets than without them.
Then a secondary one, another
one, and then the final one.
So four versions.
[ Music ]
Again.
[ Music ]
It moves quite easily to that
where it is, but Liszt didn't
like that for some reason.
[ Music ]
That's if you take a
literal interpretation
of that crossing out.
What the editors and the listed
and the new Liszt addition did
was they smoothed it out so
that it matched more
of the first version
of the constellations
that were published later.
And that's what this is
what that sounds like.
[ Music ]
Again.
[ Music ]
So we got it from.
[ Music ]
To.
[ Music ]
And then in its final version.
It's like this.
[ Music ]
So it's no longer on
the downbeat, so it's.
[ Music ]
So it's very subtle differences,
but these are the kinds
of things that are of interest.
Not just to musicologists,
but also the pianists,
because one of the
big things that's --
it's actually I should just
confess that it's really hard
to play different versions
of pieces that you know,
because you keep wanting to
revert to like how it's supposed
to go, like the every way
that you've always
heard it or whatever.
And so it's kind of you have
to try to get into the zone
of just trying to
approach it as it is,
as opposed to what it will be.
And one of the things that
I noticed about this piece
in particularly going from the
Madrigal to this new version is
that there's this -- it
just becomes easier to play
and just a more pleasurable
to play [laughs] as well.
And sometimes it's something as
simple as just a reconfiguration
of what's happening in that left
hand that makes that happen.
And maybe it's not
such a big sonic event
that everybody's going to know,
but the pianists
definitely feel it.
Then I want to show, I'm
quickly running out of time.
So I want to show a couple
of interesting things
about how he takes what is
a motto at the beginning
in the introduction,
and eventually turns
it into a motive.
So if you'll bear with me,
what I'll do is I'll just
show you a couple of instances
of this motto introduction.
I can just play it right here.
So here's the way that every
version of this piece begins.
[ Music ]
So that's how it is in everyone.
There's certain things
about that
that then seem to,
you know, this --
[ Music ]
That becomes turned into
a motto right there.
I'm sorry, into a
motive right there
that gets developed
as part of the theme.
But in the original
version he kind of builds
up to this big moment where
the motto comes back as it is,
except now in double octaves,
and it's a very big sound,
and I'll try to play it.
It's really kind of a beast.
But here's how it
moves into this.
[ Music ]
And it goes on from there.
So it kind of gets this,
suddenly you're like in this
like giant, like big sound land,
and that's not what he
does in the final version.
Instead he goes into a place
where he moves into a kind
of a Coda type of material
that focuses on that [music]
that kind of material.
And I'll just play
a little bit of that
so you can see what
the difference is.
[ Music ]
So [inaudible] is very
much more easygoing type
of approach to it.
One last thing I'm going
to say about this piece,
just in the interest of time,
is that it has a
spectacular different ending.
It's just a very different
ending from the original.
I'm sorry, from the
version that everybody knows
and so I'm just going
to play that for you,
but this is the part
that's misprinted.
It has to be a mistake I think
in the new Liszt edition.
There's just a, I won't
play the mistakes,
hopefully I won't
play the mistakes,
but this is how it ends.
[ Music ]
So it's a very, it's
a beautiful ending.
There's nothing wrong
with it in my opinion.
So it's just a choice that he
made to alter it and change it.
You know, the other
ending works perfectly
with the new setting perhaps,
so you just felt it bit more.
But there's certainly,
in my opinion,
not anything wrong
with that ending.
It's a beautiful one.
So I'm glad that we have the
manuscript is still there.
Quickly skipping ahead here.
We have several different
versions
of a pretty famous piece.
And this is the second Naturno
or the second Lebis Traume.
Often they're called
Lebis Traume,
but technically there's supposed
to be Lebis Traume number 1,
Lebis Traume number 2,
and Lebis Traume number 3.
Love dreams about each one.
So the second one is -- the
third one is the most famous one
that you've probably heard.
The second one is also
pretty well known.
It's thought that perhaps
the second one's origins.
These pieces are kind of like
the three Petrarch Sonnets
that are famous from
the Italy volume
of the Antidote Pero
Denaj [phonetic],
in that they were
originally songs.
And so [inaudible] the
Lebis Traume except
that the second one,
the one that we're going
to be talking about,
may actually have
originated as a piano piece.
And so that, here's just a
sense of the two main themes
that we're going to be
looking at briefly here.
Here's theme one,
followed by theme two.
[ Music ]
Theme one.
Here's theme two.
[ Music ]
That's theme one.
So that's the earliest
known version of this piece.
I'm not going to
play the whole thing,
but you can get a sense of it.
It's very simple.
That's the idea.
The library recently got
something that was a version,
another version of this piece,
dating from the definitely pre
naturna two version of this.
Basically a dedication
copy that was copied
out for presumably an
admirer named T Katz.
We can't figure it out.
I'm not sure who
this person was.
I'm dying to know,
but this is something
that composers would
do from time to time.
They'd write out kind
of a, either a quote
from a famous work or something
like that, or some type
of a album leaf as a way of
giving a gift to somebody.
So that's essentially
what this is.
And I'll just play it for you
so you can get a sense of it,
because there's certain
things that we learned
from this manuscript that the
library has the on display right
over here that then
affect some other things.
[ Music ]
So that's all there
is to that one.
It's still a very short thing,
but there are two things
that come into play right
away that one notices
in the second naturno
when you get
to the famous version
of this piece.
One is that there's this
opening [music] introduction.
[Music] When you
get to the naturno,
here's what it sounds
like, roughly.
[ Music ]
Then the theme is a bit
different, but it's the same.
[ Music ]
And so forth.
The cross hands in the material
that you saw makes
its appearance
in this final version as well.
So instead of where the
left hand awkwardly went
over in my way of playing it,
it becomes something a bit
more lush in this main version.
[ Music ]
[Inaudible] much of it, but the
second theme gets a lot bigger.
[ Music ]
So forth and so on.
What becomes interesting
in particularly the
library's holdings is
that we actually possess a later
version of this piece from 1865
that was given to
Olga from Mayadoor,
one of Liszt's friends,
and she held onto them
and wouldn't allow them to be
published is actually a set
of five pieces for which
were published in the '20s,
and the fifth one
published much later.
And so this is the
first of that set.
And it represents a kind of a
rarifurcation [phonetic] process
of what we had heard,
so that it becomes this,
even though it's a
simplified version
in some ways I think
it becomes kind
of the arrival point
for this piece.
So I'm just going to
play the introduction
to that so you can hear it.
And then a couple of
little pieces of it.
It's a short piece, but it's
still just play bits of it.
[ Music ]
And it goes on like that.
It has this amazing
arrival point [inaudible].
[ Music ]
And so even though it's kind
of a less of like a giant sound
than the original version, it's
to me it's just as effective,
because it's in the
context of the simple piece.
And I think that by this stage,
with this particular piece
that was Liszt thinking
had evolved to that point.
Not that evolves a bad word.
You get the idea.
So we have that other
manuscript,
so you can compare this early
version with that late version,
and that's the last
version that Liszt wrote
of this piece that we know of.
He had a tendency to
write a lot, so who knows,
there might be other
versions of this.
In fact, there are
other versions
of the out there, but, okay.
So I'm skipping ahead
a little bit.
I want to hit a really
important piece,
which is the Schlummerlied
im Grabe.
This is what would eventually
become the first elegy.
It was written to commemorate
as a memorial on the death
of Marie Moukhanoff [phonetic],
who was a friend of Liszt,
and also a very fine
pianist by all accounts.
What's interesting
about this I found
that this piece had
been published recently,
but it was published with
a different manuscript.
So the publishers of the new
Liszt addition did not know
about this manuscript
when they were doing this.
So we have -- it's a very --
there's some things that are
quite different about it.
But one of the funny things
about it is that, again,
not that an elegy memorial type
of thing is a funny situation,
but he wrote this in the
course of a few days,
and he wrote versions
for cello and piano,
a cello harp harmonium,
and piano.
Eventually became a version for
violin and piano, piano duet.
For some reason this piece
Liszt was really taken with it,
and he wrote several of those
versions within the space
of about four days
in July of 1874.
He writes a note to
Olga from [inaudible]
who we just mentioned
was the recipient
at that last piece
that we heard.
It's saying basically
at this beginning part,
make sure that you
differentiate the triplets
against the -- so
three against two.
Make sure that you're
playing it correctly,
and he actually quotes it in
the letter so that you see,
is this apparently maybe she had
a tendency to play it this way,
but here's just an example
of what he's talking about.
[ Music ]
And so it's kind
of actually a bit
on the awkward side
as it gets going.
The thing that I want
to point out about it,
I think there's no avoiding it.
I'm going to go just a little
bit longer than expected,
so I apologize for that.
You're welcome to take
off if you need to,
but I want to show you the
difference between the initial
of the introduction,
one climactic moment,
and then a couple of things
from the ending of this piece.
And then just so you can
hear what it sounds like,
because this is a piece that I
don't think many people know,
but they should know because
it's just a great piece,
I think.
So at the beginning here's
what he has in our version,
which I believe is the
earliest version of it.
[ Music ]
And then it goes on from there.
In the version that's the same
title this is what they have
in the Schlummerlied im
Grabe that's been published.
[ Music ]
So there's an extension
here that's going on,
and then when we get to the
final version of it I believe
that the cello is what
led Liszt to do this.
Because it fits perfectly
in the cello range,
and he said that he was
writing it contemporaneously.
Here's what it ended up with.
[ Music ]
So that low C [music] is at
the bottom of the cello range.
And so this is one of the
rare cases where chamber music
of Liszt's own writing
probably, in my opinion,
influenced his piano writing.
It's a rare thing, because Liszt
didn't right much chamber music.
So it's one of those things that
you can kind of learn from this.
This piece grows to these
kind of this giant climax,
and also play two of
those versions right next
to each other, so you can
see the different ways
that Liszt approached it.
Here's the version that we have
in manuscript right over here.
[ Music ]
The final version it's this.
[ Music ]
The other thing that changed
very interestingly is the end,
and I won't have time to play
you all the different versions
of it.
But in the version that we
have, I'll play that one
since that's what
we have over here.
[ Music ]
The next, the Schlimmer
Lee [phonetic]
that was published has an
[inaudible] passage that's I'll
try to remember it here.
[ Music ]
So that's how he ends it there.
And then just to kind of to
finish this off, I'm just going
to play you the final
version of the piece,
just so we have something that.
And if anybody wants to stick
around, I'll play a little bit
of Brahms to show that just so
that we can hit that as well.
But I think it's important just
to at least hit this piece too.
So here's the final
version of the elegy.
[ Music ]
So you can see how like
all these elements in it.
I didn't have time to show
you some of the other types
of things related to
this motto of [music]
that get interpreted
more I think effectively
in the final version
that we hear.
But there's a lot of interesting
things for people to take a look
at with the manuscript that we
have, especially as it relates
to also the Liszt other elegies.
There's several other ones
that I think have a fairly
clear relationship to this one.
This was the first of them,
but there's a song [inaudible]
that also very much
related to this
that he calls his
another type of elegy.
I know we're over
time, so please,
if you need to go, that's fine.
I'm just going to tell
you a couple of things
about the Brahms since
I have it out here,
so that you can see it.
One of the things that I always
like to notice with Brahms is
when he deviates from what the
published score is a manuscript.
We have several good examples
of that in the music division,
but in general Brahms did not
like his earlier versions
of things to get out.
He didn't want people to know
where he was thinking at first.
Is that right?
He was that kind
of a perfectionist.
So, you know, there's a
something right off the bat
that we see with these
late piano pieces.
He would tend to write
these piano pieces,
and kind of keep
them stored away
and eventually put them
together in groups.
So there wouldn't necessarily
always conceived as sets,
but in this case with
Opus 119, numbers two
and three they were written
back to back in the manuscript
as you'll see over on the table.
So in this case you can also see
that he's scratched out a word
and change the name of the
first word to Andantino.
Maybe that's not
such a big deal,
but there is another big
difference in this piece.
And it's one that
is significant.
The way that Brahms laid it
out, and it looks specifically
at the Opus 118 Number 2.
I'm sorry, 119 Number 2.
It's set up as basically
an ABA form.
So it has a beautiful kind
of allegretto middle section.
But it has a very
distinctive front section.
I'll play a little piece
of it, so you can hear it.
It sounds like that --
develops in a very kind
of interesting way rhythmically.
In the manuscript
though what we find is
that he's actually got it
set up so it's a literal ABA.
He's got some different
endings that are signified,
but there's not supposed
to be this development
across the beginning
of the A section,
and the return of the A section.
As you could see
that there's this,
he means it to repeat back, and
then when it gets to the sign
that has the arrow pointing
to it on the screen,
it will then go to the
short brief little coat
of those at the end.
Well, the thing I noticed
when looking through this,
there's several different
things.
And before I get to that,
I'll just mention
that the [inaudible].
The version that's
like basically an engraved
version that's just
about to be published is
missing a measure that Brahms,
you can see there
in the bottom right.
So It's present in
the manuscript,
but it's missing at that state.
So composers have to be ever
vigilant to make sure that,
you know, nobody overlooks it.
And this is another
case where I thought
that I bet Brahms was
thinking, you know, come on.
How would you think
that there's going
to be a seven bar phrase here?
Even if you, you know, don't
read the music, but I don't know
that he's thought that, but I
can kind of like assume he did.
But the big difference is here.
And I'll just have to --
I'm going to just play
this for you a little bit
so you can hear what it is.
It's actually different
music, and a different,
slightly different harmonic
pace to what's happening
from the published version.
So I'm just going to talk
without the microphone just
for a minute to give
you a quick overview
of what this major change is.
So here's the basic idea
of the opening section.
[ Music ]
So it's kind of got this
melody on top of these kind
of I think they're kind of
funky, you know, 16th notes,
repeated notes thing that go on.
As we get a little bit down
the road with it, I've printed
out the three different
versions of this.
He moves into a triplet
section in the final version.
This is what that sounds like.
[ Music ]
So you can see that it
slows down a little bit.
It's because he's
prepping this part.
[ Music ]
And so forth.
But what he does
in this version,
what's right there
is not the triplets.
So this is what you have.
And again, this is a
little bit hard to play,
because I have the other thing
in my head, so I'll just play it
so you can hear next to it.
Here's the triplets.
[ Music ]
[ Inaudible ]
And this is what he has there.
[ Music ]
The last part again.
This is the part
that's really different.
[ Music ]
So that note that does not exist
in the final version
of the piece.
What he does is that
when it comes back,
when the a section returns at
the end he does a variation
on this that speeds
up, and it feels
like it's just a
ratcheting up of tension.
So here's what that version
sounds like, and I'll try
to follow it on my page.
[ Music ]
So there's this -- I'm not going
to play the whole piece for you,
but if you hear it in the
context of the full piece,
there's this very
calculated sense
of rhythmic activity that's
very much affects the dramaturgy
of the piece as a whole.
So it's an interesting
change that he made.
Had he not made it, I don't know
that people would've, you know,
thought, oh man, this would
have been a good piece
if only he had made this
a triplet section instead
of something else.
But the fact that he did
I think created a certain
through composed
component to it that gave --
it affected the arch of the
piece in such a way as to
in my opinion probably
improve it, and certainly
in Brahms opinion, because
he wouldn't have changed
it otherwise.
So this is the kind of --
this is just my last example
of the kind of thing
that you'll find
when studying the
manuscripts here.
We have so many manuscript
materials,
and not just these holograph
sources, but first additions,
things that you'll want
to compare between pieces
that it really benefits study.
It's remarkable how much
work has been done on them,
and it's also remarkable how
little work has been done
on certain things.
So if you have a pet
project you want to come in,
and just compare a favorite
piece or something like that,
and we have any primary sources
with it, it's really something
that I think that you
would enjoy looking
through our collection, and
looking through other versions
that we have, because you
never know what you might
stumble across.
People do it all the time,
and in our collections will find
either things that are missing
or just things that
were overlooked.
There's just so much volume
of material, and so few people
who are, you know,
literally going through it
that we encourage
everybody who's interested
to come check it out.
So thank you all very much for
staying a little bit longer,
and also being such a good
audience, and listening
to me talk about these recent
manuscript acquisitions.
And so please come
up and take a look.
I'll be happy to
show them to you.
Thank you.
[Applause]