SKU: TM.09131SET
Jubilee, Noel, Hobgoblin, Vagrom Ballad.
SKU: TM.09131SC
SKU: HL.4008694
UPC: 196288190509.
To mark the 30th anniversary of Mosaici Bizantini Franco Cesarini decided to publish this revised version. He added a few instruments to the instrumentation and completely revised the notation. The work is now available in large-sized full score and exclusively from the composer's publishing house. For this grand work, Franco Cesarini was inspired by three byzantine mosaics, which can be seen in churches in Venice and Palermo. He took the musical motives from Gregorian chants. The mosaics concerned depict the following extracts from “The Gospel according to St. Matthewâ€: 1. The Nativity 2. The Temple of Jerusalem 3. Angel of the Resurrection This new, revised version of this masterpiece will delight both the orchestra and the audience!
SKU: FA.MFCD017B
8.27 x 11.69 inches.
Contains Le Roi Lear: Prelude,Premiere Fanfare, and La Mort de Cordelia,Toomai des elephants, Rodrigue et Chimene: Prelude a l'acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du SilenceFrom Robert Orledge's notes:My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelleas et Melisande in 1893-1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1912-13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphee-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902-03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908-17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912-13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien and La Boite a joujoux by his 'angel of corrections' ['l'ange des Corrections'] Andre Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy's 'compulsive achievement' could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure's 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to 'write a ballet for him that he would sign' on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andre Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy's lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts--then orchestrating them in Debussy's style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.
SKU: SU.00220180
The complete Double Bass parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
Ple ase note, customers using Macintosh computers running macOS Catalina (version 10.5) have reported hardware compatibility issues with this product. If you encounter these issues, we recommend copying the entire contents of the disk to a contained folder on a thumb drive or other storage device for use on your Mac.
SKU: SU.00220169
The complete Flute and Piccolo parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
SKU: SU.00220170
The complete Oboe and English Horn parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
SKU: SU.00220177
The complete Violin I & II parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
SKU: SU.00220171
The complete Clarinet (including Eb and Bass Clarinet) parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
SKU: SU.00220181
The complete Harp, Keyboard (Piano, Organ, etc.) and auxiliary parts [CD-ROM] for the 46 orchestral works included in The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library™, Volume 7: Ravel, Elgar and more. If these parts were purchased separately, this collection could cost several hundred dollars. Parts are easily viewable and printable on either PC or Mac using embedded Adobe® Reader technology. Contents: CHADWICK Symphonic Sketches; DELIUS Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Summer Night on the River; D'INDY Symphony on a French Mountain Air; DUKAS Symphony in C, La Péri, Sorcerer's Apprentice; ELGAR Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Froissart, In the South, Introduction and Allegro, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4, Serenade for Strings, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 1 & 2; GRIFFES Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, Poem for Flute, White Peackock; HOLST The Planets; NIELSEN Symphonies 1-5, Violin Concerto, Helios Overture, Maskarade Overture and Dance; RAVEL Alborada del gracioso, Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2, Mother Goose Suite, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Rhapsodie Espagnole, Le Tombeau de Couperin, La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Visit for more information
SKU: BA.BA06861
ISBN 9790260104211. 34.3 x 27 cm inches.
LeoÅ¡ Janácek’s symphonic fragment Dunaj (The Danube) dates from the period of the composition of “Katya Kabanovaâ€. The composer was not concerned with a musical-picturesque description of a river landscape, but with the mythical link between women’s destinies and water.“Pale green waves of the Danube! There are so many of you, and one followed by another. You remain interlocked in a continuous flow. You surprise yourselves where you ended up – on the Czech shores! Look back downstream and you will have an impression of what you have left behind in your haste. It pleases you here. Here I will rest with my symphony.†Thus LeoÅ¡ Janácek described the idea behind the composition project which occupied him in 1923/24. However, after further work, it remained incomplete in 1926. His “symphony†entitled Dunaj has survived as a continuously-notated, four-movement bundle of sketches in score form. It is one of the works which occupied him until his death. The scholarly reconstruction by the two Brno composers MiloÅ¡ Å tedron and LeoÅ¡ Faltus closely follows the original manuscript.A whole conglomeration of motifs stands behind the incomplete work. What at first seems like a counterpart to Smetana’s Vltava, in fact doesn’t turn out to be a musical depiction of the Danube. On the contrary, the fateful link between the destiny of women, water and death permeates the range of motifs found in the work. It seems to be no coincidence that Janácek, whilst working on the opera Katya Kabanova, in which the Volga, as the river bringing death plays an almost mythical role, planned a Danube symphony, and that its content was linked with the destiny of women: in the sketches, two poems were found which may have provided the stimulus for several movements of the symphony. He copied a poem by Pavla Kriciková into the second movement, in which a girl remarks that whilst bathing in a pond, she was observed by a man. Filled with shame, the young naked woman jumps into the water and drowns. The outer movements likewise draw on the poem “Lola†by the Czech writer Sonja Å pálová, published under the pseudonym Alexander Insarov. This is about a prostitute who asks for her heart’s desire: she is given a palace, but then goes on a long search for it and is finally no longer wanted by anyone. She suffers, feels cold and just wants a warm fire. Janácek adds his remark “she jumps into the Danube†to the inconclusive ending.To these tangible literary models is added Adolf Veselý’s verbal account which reports that the composer wanted to portray “in the Danube, the female sex with all its passions and driving forcesâ€. The third movement is said to characterise the city of Vienna in the form of a woman.It is evident that in his composition, Janácek was not striving for a simple, natural lyricism. The River Danube is masculine in the Slavic language – “ten Dunaj†– and assumes an almost mythical significance in the national character, indeed often also a role bringing death. The four movements are motivically conceived. Elements of sound painting, small wave-like figures in the first movement, motoric, driving movements in the third are obvious evocations of water. And the content and the literary level are easy to discover. The “tremolo of the four timpaniâ€, which was amongst Janácek’s first inspirations, appears in the second movement. It is not difficult to retrace in it the fate of the drowning bather. The oboe enters lamentoso towards the end of the movement over timpani playing tremolo, its descending figure is taken over by the flute, then upper strings and intensified considerably. The motif of drowning – Lola’s despair – returns again in the fourth movement in the clarinet, before the work ends abruptly and dramatically.One special effect is the use of a soprano voice in the motor-driven third movement. The singer vocalises mainly in parallel with the solo oboe, but also in dialogue with other parts such as the viola d’amore, which Janácek used in several late works as a sort of “voice of loveâ€.
About Barenreiter Urtext
What can I expect from a Barenreiter Urtext edition?< /p> MUSICOLOGICA LLY SOUND - A reliable musical text based on all available sources - A description of the sources - Information on the genesis and history of the work - Valuable notes on performance practice - Includes an introduction with critical commentary explaining source discrepancies and editorial decisions ... AND PRACTICAL - Page-turns, fold-out pages, and cues where you need them - A well-presented layout and a user-friendly format - Excellent print quality - Superior paper and binding
What can I expect from a Barenreiter Urtext edition?< /p>
MUSICOLOGICA LLY SOUND - A reliable musical text based on all available sources - A description of the sources - Information on the genesis and history of the work - Valuable notes on performance practice - Includes an introduction with critical commentary explaining source discrepancies and editorial decisions ... AND PRACTICAL - Page-turns, fold-out pages, and cues where you need them - A well-presented layout and a user-friendly format - Excellent print quality - Superior paper and binding
SKU: HL.51489819
UPC: 840126932737. 6.75x9.5x0.712 inches.
After the first sketches had been put to paper in 1815, Beethoven only finally put the finishing touches to his last completed symphony in 1824. With its extended finale in which soloists and choir perform, building the bridge to the symphonic cantata with their invocation of fraternity, it marks a caesura in the history of the symphony that echoed long into the nineteenth century. The main theme of the ode “To Joy†by Friedrich Schiller, set to music in the final movement, has become one of the most popular melodies in all of classical music and today serves as the official anthem of Europe. Based on the musical text of the Beethoven Complete Edition and furnished with a new preface, this recently prepared edition reflects the latest in Beethoven scholarship. Now,in this study edition, it is available to everyone at a reasonable price and in a handy format.
About Henle Urtext
What I can expect from Henle Urtext editions:
SKU: BA.BA10303-01
ISBN 9790006559503. 33 x 26 cm inches. Key: C minor. Preface: Michael Stegemann.
The third symphony by Camille Saint-Saens, known as the Organ Symphony, is the first publication in a complete historical-critical edition of the French composer's instrumental works.I gave everything I was able to give in this work. [...] What I have done here I will never be able to do again.Camille Saint-Saens was rightly proud of his third Symphony in C minor Op.78, dedicated to the memory of Franz Liszt. Called theOrgan Symphonybecause of its novel scoring, the work was a commission from the Philharmonic Society in London, as was Beethoven's Ninth, and was premiered there on 19 May 1886. The first performance in Paris followed on 9 January 1887 and confirmed the composer's reputation asprobably the most significant, and certainly the most independent French symphonistof his time, as Ludwig Finscher wrote in MGG. In fact the work remains the only one in the history of that genre in France to the present day, composed a good half century after the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz and a good half century before Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie.You would think that such a famous, much-performed and much recorded opus could not hold any more secrets, but far from it: in the first historical-critical edition of the Symphony, numerous inconsistencies and mistakes in the Durand edition in general use until now, have been uncovered and corrected. An examination and evaluation of the sources ranged from two early sketches, now preserved in Paris and Washington (in which the Symphony was still in B minor!) via the autograph manuscript and a set of proofs corrected by Saint-Saens himself, to the first and subsequent editions of the full score and parts. The versions for piano duet (by Leon Roques) and for two pianos (by the composer himself) were also consulted. Further crucial information was finally found in his extensive correspondence, encompassing thousands of previously unpublished letters. The discoveries made in producing this edition include the fact that at its London premiere, the Symphony probably looked quite different from its present appearance ...No less exciting than the work itself is the history of its composition and reception, which are described in an extensive foreword. With his Symphony, Saint-Saens entered right into the dispute which divided French musical life into pro and contra Wagner in the 1880s and 1890s. At the same time, the work succeeded in preserving the balance between tradition and modernism in masterly fashion, as a contemporary critic stated:The C minor Symphony by Saint-Saens creates a bridge from the past into the future, from immortal richness to progress, from ideas to their implementation.On 19 March 1886 Saint-Saens wrote to the London Philharmonic Society, which commissioned the work:Work on the symphony is in full swing. But I warn you, it will be terrible. Here is the precise instrumentation: 3 flutes / 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais / 2 clarinets / 1 bass clarinet / 2 bassoons / 1 contrabassoon / 2 natural horns / [3 trumpets / Saint-Saens had forgotten these in his listing.] 2 chromatic horns / 3 trombones / 1 tuba / 3 timpani / organ / 1 piano duet and the strings, of course. Fortunately, there are no harps. Unfortunately it will be difficult. I am doing what I can to mitigate the difficulties.As in my 4th Concerto [for piano] and my [1st] Violin Sonata [in D minor Op.75] at first glance there appear to be just two parts: the first Allegro and the Adagio, the Scherzo and the Finale, each attacca. This fiendish symphony has crept up by a semitone; it did not want to stay in B minor, and is now in C minor.It would be a pleasure for me to conduct this symphony. Whether it would be a pleasure for others to hear it? That is the question. It is you who wanted it, I wash my hands of it. I will bring the orchestral parts carefully corrected with me, and if anyone wants to give me a nice rehearsal for the symphony after the full rehearsal, everything will be fine.When Saint-Saens hit upon the idea of adding an organ and a piano to the usual orchestral scoring is not known. The idea of adding an organ part to a secular orchestral work intended for the concert hall was thoroughly novel - and not without controversy. On the other hand, Franz Liszt, whose music Saint-Saens' Symphony is so close to, had already demonstrated that the organ could easily be an orchestral instrument in his symphonic poem Hunnenschlacht (1856/57). There was also a model for the piano duet part which Saint-Saens knew and may possibly have used quite consciously as an exemplar: theFantaisie sur la Tempetefrom the lyrical monodrama Lelio, ou le retour a la Vie op. 14bis (1831) by Berlioz. The name of the organist at the premiere ist unknown, as, incidentally, was also the case with many of the later performances; the organ part is indeed not soloistic, but should be understood as part of the orchestral texture.In fact the subsequent success of the symphony seems to have represented a kind of breakthrough for the composer, who was then over 50 years of age.My dear composer of a famous symphony, wrote Saint-Saens' friend and pupil Gabriel Faure:You will never be able to imagine what a pleasure I had last Sunday [at the second performance on 16 January 1887]! And I had the score and did not miss a single note of this Symphony, which will endure much longer than we two, even if we were to join together our two lifespans!
SKU: BR.PB-5710
ISBN 9790004216477. 10.5 x 14 inches.
Richard Strauss's last completed tone poem is regarded as the pinnacle of his art of orchestration: Now I've finally learned to orchestrate, he himself is once supposed to have said about it after the dress rehearsal. The single-movement Alpine symphony that we know today ultimately evolved - over almost 15 years - from the original drafts of an artist's tragedy, titled Der Antichrist. Eine Alpensinfonie [The Antichrist. An Alpine Symphony] up to the stage of the last sketches. With unprecedented plasticity, the work showcases a (metaphysical?) mountain hike with stops in the forest, at the waterfall, on the alpine pasture and, of course, at the summit. Apropos alpine pastures: up to the score's fair copy stage, Strauss envisaged a high and a low alphorn for the section Auf der Alm [On the Alpine Pasture] and the well-known Dulioh theme, though for various reasons first detailed in our new Urtext edition, these exotic instruments did not find their way into the printed version. In the new edition, the editor, Nick Pfefferkorn, reproduces the alphorn passages in small print, also adding two alphorn parts to the performance material, besides evaluating the corrections made by Walter Seifert at Strauss's request.First Urtext edition since the first editionEvaluation of all available sources, including sketches and the score corrected by Walter Seifert Extensive preface on the work's compositional history and receptionDetailed Critical ReportFacsimile pages.
SKU: AP.36-50100324
UPC: 735816184612. English.
In the late 1960s, Alan Shulman composed four works for symphonic winds. Interstate 90 dates from a 1962 sketch depicting a drive heading west on the Massachusetts Turnpike and New York State Thruway. It was completed in August 1968 and received its first performance in 1969 by the Gloria Concert Band conducted by Don Butterfield. This arrangement was written by Adam Michlin. (3:00).
These products are currently being prepared by a new publisher. While many items are ready and will ship on time, some others may see delays of several months.
SKU: AP.36-50105324
ISBN 9798892703147. UPC: 659359503184. English.
SKU: BT.EMBZ20017A
English-German-Hungari an.
In 1845 Franz Liszt embarked on a project to compose an Italian opera based on Lord Byron’s tragedy, Sardanapalus (1821). It was central to his ambition to attain status as a major European composer, with premieres variously planned for Milan, Vienna, Paris and London. But he abandoned it half way through, and the music he completed has lain silently for 170 years. Liszt’s difficulty in obtaining a libretto meant that composition only began in April 1850. He completed virtually all the music for Act 1 in an annotated piano-vocal score of 111 pages, contained within his N4 music ‘sketch book’. The unnamed librettist was an Italian poet and political prisoner, seemingly living under house arrest, and a close acquaintance of Cristina Belgiojoso. His libretto survives as underlay in the N4 sketchbook and has been critically reconstructed and translated. Sardanapalo is Liszt’s only mature opera. While he consistently referred to it in French, as Sardanapale, the published title of the Italian opera would almost certainly have used the Italian name, hence this forms the title of the first edition. There are three solo roles and a chorus of concubines. The manuscript was previously thought to be fragmentary and partially illegible, but it was finally deciphered to international acclaim in March 2017. Liszt’s score offers a richly melodic style, with elements from Bellini and Verdi alongside glimmers of Wagner and the symphonic poems ahead: a unique mixture of Italianate pastiche and mid-century harmonic innovation. It remains quintessentially Lisztian. The opera sets Byron’s tragedy about war and peace in ancient Assyria: the last King, effeminate in his tastes, is drawn to wine, concubines and feasts more than politics and war: his subjects find him dishonourable (a ‘man queen’) and military rebels seek to overthrow him, but are pardoned, for the King rejects the ‘deceit of glory’ built on others’ suffering: this leads only to a larger uprising, the Euphrates floods its banks, destroying the castle’s main defensive wall, and defeat is inevitable: the King sends his family away and orders that he be burned alive with his lover, amid scents and spices in a grand inferno. As Byron put it: ‘not a mere pillar formed of cloud and flame, but a light to lessen ages.’ For his part, Liszt told a friend that his finale ‘will even aim to set fire to the entire audience!’ This critical edition includes a detailed study on the genesis of Liszt’s Sardanapalo in English, German, and Hungarian, the libretto in the original Italian as well as in English, German, and Hungarian translation, several facsimile pages of Liszt’s manuscript, and a detailed Critical Report.
