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Contents:
DDD Total time = 76.59 - Recorded at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London 1998 Liste’s oeuvre includes songs, choral works, sonatas for piano solo, a Grande Sonata for piano duet and the sonata op. 3 for bassoon and piano. The two solo sonatas recorded here were published in 1804 in Nägeli’s series Répertoire des Clavecinistes. Although Zurich was not known as a particularly musical city, Nägeli had advanced to being one of the most important publishers in the German-speaking world. The aforementioned series also included editions of Beethoven’s Pathétique and Waldstein sonatas. On the evidence of the music on this CD, Liste was obviously well acquainted with Beethoven’s music, and it was to Beethoven that he later dedicated his piano sonata in A major. Liste was also fond of experimentation. The G-major Sonata on this CD, for example, is cast in one movement, while the Sonata for Piano Duet op. 2, published by Brieitkopf, even ends with a fugue. By no means was Anton Liste unknown in his day. In his famous dictionary, Gerber wrote in 1813 that ‘according to the judgment of several experts, [Liste’s] piano works belong to the most excellent, both with regard to the originality and appropriateness of their form, as well as their attractiveness of style.’ The ‘rediscovery’ of Liste in our own time is not least the work of the English bassoonist William Waterhouse. He came across Liste’s Bassoon Sonata in the early 1950s, recognized it to be the most significant example of its kind of the early 19th century, and recorded it for the BBC with the pianist Ernest Lush. He later performed it several times together with his wife Elisabeth. His new edition of the sonata was published in 1994 by Universal Edition of Vienna. Further biographical digging was done by the American scholar Paul Listen of Berkeley University, a descendant of Liste’s son Franz Karl, who emigrated to the USA in 1860. This CD has come about as a cooperative effort of Waterhouse, Listen, Guild Records and the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, which possesses the largest collection of music and documents on the life and work of the composer, including the first editions of the works recorded here (the autographs are today no longer extant).. William Waterhouse has written as follows on the Bassoon Sonata op. 3: ‘This work is remarkable for its time as being a sonata conceived as a true duo for two equal partners. In this respect it is comparable to Beethoven’s Sonatas op. 5 for cello (1796). Its published title of Grande Sonate pour le Piano Forte con Accompagnement de Basson ou Violoncelle obligé belies not only this fact, but that it is unequivocally a piece for bassoon, rather than for cello. The character of the writing, the keys chosen, the exploitation of its bottom note (missing on the cello), its avoidance of the extreme high register, the dedication to Heinrich Escher, first bassoonist of the AMG orchestra -- all underline this. Compared to the two earlier piano sonatas, which keep within a range of FF to f’’’, this piano part calls for an instrument with extended compass ascending a tenth higher to a’’’’. There are several features of striking originality. In the working-out section of the first movement the main theme is subjected to successive transformations. in the last of these, marked con espressione, the rhapsodic solo line is accompanied by swirling arpeggios in the piano. The central section of the slow movement, marked Grave senza Tempo, dispenses with barlines altogether. Here the bassoon rhapsodizes in free recitative on a minor version of the theme to a mysterious accompaniment consisting of tremolo chords. The only documented performance of the work is that given by Liste in Strasbourg in 1822 with the bassoonist Theobald von Hürt (1793-1858), who subsequently became a member of the Viennese Court Orchestra in 1840.’ Dr. Chris Walton Page revised 27.06.03 |
