Cziffra's "Fantasy on William Tell" Pastorale-Finale Audio + Sheet Music

[sprund2009]

I saw an interview with Gyorgy Sandor once in which he said he was in a cafe somewhere like Budapest or Paris and a piano was being played in the next room. After a while because it was quite good, he asked "Who are the people playing the piano next door?" He got the answer "People? It's just one person - Cziffra". Sandor was flabbergasted, because he thought it was too people playing complicated duets and he went to see for himself, and sure enough it was Cziffra on his own.

[cowzilla8]

Not to mention, that a part of the finale sounds like something from Rachmaninoff's Op. 23 No.5 Prelude in G Minor.

[sirshitsalot007]

this must be a bitch to sightread

[dorianderseed]

@sirshitsalot007 haha yes it would.

[Jim0734]

I haven't listened to this for a while but :O:O:O:O:O:O:O:O:O:O rings truer than ever. My favorite bit is 5.06 - 5.09 but the whole thing is a scandalous talent. I don't think a piano has ever lived through something more mercilous from one player.

[GypsyPianist]

Has anyone made a more accurate version of this masterwork?

[Jim341046]

I'd like to put a solar powered music player near his grave.

[Jim341046]

There are a few super-virtuosi but there is only one ulta-virtuoso

[purerhodium]

I actually like the pastorale section in this transcription more than that in the original... it's so much more calming.

[RemovdSande11]

Beethoven: " alright let's play some piano today... now let me see"

*starts reading Fantasy on William Tell*

Beethoven: " WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS?!?"

[Colinyoungjunjang]

Is there any "real" sheet? This is just kind of made by piano roll.. It includes a lot of worng notes, and missed some notes....

[TripleRhu]

@Colinyoungjunjang no.

[Laudan08]

@Colinyoungjunjang All errors are so perfect, that they appear on the score...

[tydougandrene]

so sad cziffra's son died and his grief killed the musician in him...we must honor this piece of audio of him playing the piano at his finest.

[0530pianist]

Wow Cziffra is CRAZY.He isn't human.Only MIDI can play this after Cziffra!!!

[C0L050]

Many truplets ... O_____________________O shit!!!! I cried but her perfomance how he can play 7tuplets 11? 9? 12? shiit this man is god is high high high high difficult play all this Cziffra You are the last True Genius of The music from 20th century You played all the most Difficult composers and you maked new music

[Jim341046]

@C0L050 All you say is correct. The usual virtuoso material was too easy so he had to make some cziffra level material. Apparently the coda at the end is unplayable - let alone the middle bit!!

[TripleRhu]

HOLY COW

[Jlan0151738]

HOW!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!­?!?!?!?

[Jim341046]

There is just no getting around the fact that Cziffra was the Pele of Piano. He actually takes a lot of care to play this right. Such a shame this performance was never filmed in HD....I still wonder how it can be real..

[DoctorD47]

@TheExarion there was 11 chords early in the song O.O

[HomelyCooking]

Pause the video at 3:23. No comment necessary.

[TheExarion]

What the heck, 6 and 7 note chords? xD

[theanguished1]

@TheExarion his hands were the size of turantulas

[TheExarion]

@theanguished1 lol, just sayin' I doubt these notes are completely accurate xP

[brozors]

c'mon Yuja Wong, let's see if you can play this one..

[Laudan08]

WTF!

Am i rare for thinking the finale it's related to the Rossini's Fantasy (Thalberg), Hammerklavier sonata and the Grand galop Chromatique???????

[MisterBREADbasket]

shit...

[cowzilla8]

Man, if anyone can play this and the Introduction all the way through with no break(s), that person is consider an inhumane pianist.

[TripleRhu]

the coda scares me

6:17

!!!!!!!!!

[TripleRhu]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­

[janvandoedelpuk]

This is territorial pissing. Beethoven or Opera potpourris..... A question of priorities.

Cziffra choose the latter. There you have it mr Cziffra. Your artistic credo.

King of the hill.... The hill of Opera potpourris that is. For what it is worth.

[maxreger100]

@janvandoedelpuk Were you having a bad day? Even great composers wrote potpourris. And Beethoven himself wrote plenty of variations baaed on silly, but popular, operatic themes. As for a place in history, Cziffra is still listened to by new generations, where wonderful "serious" pianists like Clifford Curzon are all but forgotten. This may be drek, but it's still great fun.

[Kalen1457]

RIght hand sounds like chopin's 5th etude op.10 at times.

[xguy003]

for what reason did he want to compose this thick piano concentrated juice

[kasyapa]

probably not a pure improv, in the sense that one can hear cuts here and there.

[Jim341046]

Actually Sabre Dance might be even more formidable - but let's get one thing straight - it's Cziffra all the way. He is an Everest amongst many Mt Logans

[Jim341046]

How the hell did someone 'write this down'!?!?!?!?! I thought the Oscar Peterson Trascriptions were impressive but this is ridiculous - it must of taken months!

[Oiiix3]

I sight read this today, just like all the pieces on this channel!

[Oiiix3]

@Oiiix3 I only got 2 notes tho

[Werwolf2x]

how can so much insanity and ingenuity fit into one person? :O

[Jim341046]

Look at the second row of music starting 5.41 - one set of chords has 7 notes in the left hand!!

It looks like Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb, C, Db. Even if that isn't spot-on, how do you play more than 5 notes when they are a mixture of white and black keys?

This piece is mad.

[f1f1s]

@Jim341046

Cziffra has always 'taken care' of those who dares to repeat his divine pieces!

[purerhodium]

This is so much crazier than the Liszt transcription (in a good way). Cziffra was truly a genius.

[aaron12345432]

wtf hax

[cranez006]

I wonder just how many people on this planet can play this piece, at this quality and with this precision.I would guess 5. That may be 5 too many....

[Jim341046]

@cranez006 I noticed Yuja Wang has played Cziffra's tritch tratch polka but doubt we'll see anyone attempt this for a long time.

[Zebeldarebel]

William Tell on roids!!!

[palpitamento]

...OMG!!!!!!!!!

[Jim341046]

As a pianist I don't understand how 5.50 to 5.52 is actually possible. Is an octave glissando possible in one hand?!?

Either way, this piece is the closest anyone will ever get to playing Circus Galop. I think Marc Andre would agree.

[llamasownyou]

@Jim341046

It's definately possible. You put your hand in the position of the octave, and drag down. I can do it, although I've heard that some find it very difficult.

[TheJgutierrez]

@llamasownyou please send me a video of how to play an octave glissando because im having trouble playing page 7 of sabre dance because an octave glissando

[purerhodium]

Check out Cziffra's La Fantaisie Roumaine. It has an entire passage with almost nothing but octave glissandos in the right hand, going UPWARDS.

[addeex1]

Yes it's possible, it has been in some pieces such as Beethovens waldstein sonata 3rd movement i believe, its glissandos up and down with right and left hand switching, a real bitch.... :P

I brahms paganini transcription there is the octave glissando too, and don't forget the great Islamey by Balakirrev.

I'm sure there are a lot more pieces can't get up with any :D

[hanspellegrims]

Well, it is possible, but you need really big hands. You have to curve your pink so that your nail touches the keys. And it really hurts, as well

[newFranzFerencLiszt]

musically boring

[Jim341046]

His hands are like two research centres. Each more power than the sum of human knowledge.

I don't believe there is anyone alive who can play this note for note at the same speed. Any takers?

[remyrem121]

Anyone who says they can is lying.

[Jim341046]

OMG. I think that's the hardest piece on You Tube!

[HomelyCooking]

No one does it like Cziffra.

[piuotre]

impressive

[merilouwiz]

impossible!

[morvensky]

jeez, he makes this sound easy!

[SwePianoholic]

incredibly impressive :)

[Starbirdy9999]

:O :O :O :O!

[rogernldw]

Is it music or Circus troupe?

[agrandb]

i cant belive a human can play this

[Litawyn]

@agrandb  Cziffra wasn't human.

[carlsjoseph13]

one must have 20 fingers to play this piece!!!

[MinnYouRim]

how can i get the sheet of it?

i mean self-written.

[whyshouldidothis10]

where can i download this performance???

[RWBHere]

Here.

[12rosebud12]

This technique is incredible. BUT actually played by Cziffra, NOT by a MIDI computer programme.

[evifnoskcaj]

GREATEST PIANIST TO EVER LIVE!!!!!

[tasteslikechicken55]

good lord what a piece!

[cranez006]

I cannot believe that this music comes from a human's TWO hands! Make yourself smile when you think that many of today's "artists" think thay are in the same league as this performer...

[DunkleArie31]

agreed... cziffra is in a league of his own

[NathanPlano]

When doing the right hand octave glissando at 5:50, do you use the 4th finger or 5th?

[yellingLoL]

I use my fifth finger

[Ltlevim]

Whatever gives you the warm fuzzies, or hurts your hand the least (I use 5, but it's still really hard).

[Scarbogn]

I would need a new set of hands every time played this :P

[MrPiano1994]

there's no dynamics either????

[piano345]

Following the text while Cziffra is playing his own transcription is fascinating. You realise how technically challenging the piece really is. No wonder nobody else plays it or records it! I have the score and there seem to be misprints although being an improvisation Cziffra would vary the text each time he played it.

[alkanliszt]

Fabulous piano playing with such joie de vivre. Re the sheet music I've heard from several people that vol.2 of the Cziffra transcriptions was done by computer with some subsequent human input; it's still crying out for a decent editor to tidy it up as there are a lot of spurious extra notes in chords and the way the accidentals have been written out is often very poor from a music-syntactical point of view. Vol. 1 is much better done - I believe Cziffra himself had some editorial input to it.

[yellingLoL]

I cracked up when I heard the finale.

[klavigen]

Wonderful piece with gives a spot to Cziffras genious musical sense and even humour-

it is really not that important if there are missing some written notes are not- the whole thing itself is just wonderful and presented by a real master of the piano

[f1f1s]

Insane, inhuman technique! To hit all those octaves and chords without a mistake! So easilly played! If Cziffra were alive, he'd be a millionaire with all his perfomances now!

[framaulo]

LooooooooooooooooL

[addeex1]

How the fuck do you do glissando with octaves? :O ^^ Haha in that speed too (5:51)

[bsdkflh]

5:41 is similar to Rachmaninov's 9/Op.39 Etude

anyway

really brilliant piece, even at points good piece of music.

shame that probably nobody will bother playing it..

[UserID20]

Never noticed that, but I believe 5:12 through 5:25 sounds like his opus 23 no 5... Rachman's that is

[LetTheMusicFlow1]

the rhythm certainly does imply so, doesn't it?

[Rheesoman]

i didn't reconise it was william tell intill about a minute into it.....lol,

[UKpiano]

Imagine having to sight-read this muhahahahaha.

[tomekkobialka]

Yeah, and I wonder in what grade the examiner would give this piece to sight-read...hmm...maybe grade 274?

LOL

[UKpiano]

lol exaclty, but this type of piece is beyond most pianists abilities is it not, its far harder than etudes by Chopin and liszt, and they are considered by some as some of the hardest pieces ever. This piece alone is probably harder than all of them put together, does it get any harder than this I ask myself.... well then theres Hamelin etudes, Alkan concerto for piano solo etc..

[tomekkobialka]

The sheet music is DEFINITELY very hard, but I don't believe that Cziffra played the notes that are in the score. (at least not in this recording) But then, if someone does want to learn this piece, it seems almost impossible to learn from this particular sheet music. So how would a person learn this piece?

[Aul1kki]

He plays pretty much everything there is in the score. I can't hear big differences between score and recording. Also when a person is learning this piece he can think: "is there any point to play all thos notes when nobody can hear if I play them or not" Especially in the left hand there are so thick chords that if you delete note or two there are no noticeably difference. Those added notes just makes it harder to play it. I'm interested to play these, but not in many years.

[CocoaRadix]

I watched it a few times now, and I'm pretty sure he omits a ton of notes. I don't claim to be a magnificent pianist, but my technique is at a level where I can say that it's pretty much impossible to play the thickness of the notes at this speed, let alone to do it AND obtain the clarity that he does. Besides, look at the last couple of chords. He clearly doesn't play the A natural in the left hand, and I can't hear the F in the right. If he's omitting notes in that "easy" spot...

[tomekkobialka]

I agree; those last three chords are just normal E-flat major chords. So why is there an A natural and F when Cziffra clearly doesn't play them?

Maybe the answer lies in the Cziffra Foundation...

[f1f1s]

And there is a G-flat in the second chord in Finale, but... It must be natural! Maybe he plays the G-flat pianissimo (and it's meant to be played silently)? Just see through his Sabre dance - tons of extra notes are mixed around octaves, and they are always different. The main interval is hit loudly, and the weird abnormal notes are just badly heard.

So here is the most probable version. He used a piano recording roll (such as Ampico) and occasionally hit those 'extra' ones? Maybe you agree? =|

[Aul1kki]

When I listened it couple times with concentration, I have to agree with you. He really omits lot of notes. I can only wonder who made this score? Was it cziffra? But he is still playing pretty much of it.

[georgecziffra]

I think the sheet music is from a computer notating program trying to make sense of the recording. This performance is actually an improvisation and Cziffra never bothered to write it down.

[tomekkobialka]

Well, they definitely edited it because the computer wouldn't be capable of knowing where there are arppegiated chords etc...

[hanspellegrims]

@tomekkobialka I think they only partially edited it, because there still are numerous errors in the sheets, especially in the fast right-hand passages

[Jim341046]

@hanspellegrims I can't see anyone doubting Cziffra is the technically the best piano player to of recorded music.

[kastlesucksTDOTS]

@tomekkobialka

Unfortunately, due to the age/quality of the recording, some areas are indecipherable, even to humans.

[pianist7137]

Wow this is one amazing transcription!! I have been searching for a recording for sooo long.. Thanks for sharing!!