193 Pieces by Liszt Added to Piano Street’s Sheet Music Library

The latest addition to our already vast piano sheet music library almost doubles the number of pieces by Franz Liszt. Last week, we added 193 pieces by this multifaceted composer, taking a significant step towards our goal of publishing a complete library of the classical piano repertoire. Our Liszt section is now nearly complete, but more will follow – with this extremely productive and hard-working composer-pianist it’s hard to know where to stop!

Getting a grip on Liszt’s complete works is a complicated business, not least because of his many reworkings and revisions – many pieces exist in two or three versions. Among our new additions are some early versions of pieces from the important cycle Années de pèlerinage. These works were conceived during the young Liszt’s years of travel, collected in the early Album d’un voyageur, and finalized in his mature period.

Liszt’s pianistic language was incredibly rich, and he wrote pieces in a lot of different genres. As one of history’s greatest touring virtuosos, much of his music is notoriously difficult to play. But there are exceptions, not least among the sacred pieces like the transcription of Arcadelt’s Ave Maria, or some of the late works like Abschied, Wiegenlied, or En rêve. Works from this period are also notable for their forward-looking harmonic language.

We’ve added many of the great fantasies and paraphrases, a specialty of Liszt, who was always very interested in promoting other composers’ works, either by including them in his recitals or by making all sorts of piano arrangements and transcriptions. Among the new opera fantasies on site are the Réminiscences of Mozart’s Don Juan, Bellini’s Norma and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Concert Paraphrases on Verdi’s Rigoletto and Ernani. There are also a large number of more straightforward transcriptions: 39 Schubert songs and 14 Wagner opera excerpts, to name some of them.

The new pieces are also available in the AST, where you can listen to handpicked recordings from Naxos Music Library while following along in the score – an excellent way of broadening your repertoire knowledge, and a chance to get a fuller picture of a composer who was one of music’s greatest innovators but tends to be known by only a tiny fraction of his work.

Se all recently added pieces

For instant unlimited access to the sheet music library and AST, you need a Piano Street Gold membership.