Schubert/Liszt - Wanderer Fantasy (4/4)

Franz Peter Schubert ( January 31, 1797 November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing.

Jenö Jando, piano and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andras Ligeti

The Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 (D. 760), popularly known as the Wanderer Fantasy, is a four-movement fantasy for solo piano composed by Franz Schubert in November 1822. It is considered Schubert's most technically demanding composition for the piano. Schubert himself said "the devil may play it", in reference to his own inability to do so properly.

Schubert composed this work in 1822, the same year he worked on the Unfinished Symphony. It was written for, and dedicated to, Emanuel Karl, Edler von Liebenberg, who had studied piano with Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Schubert wrote it in the hope of earning some money from the dedication.

The whole work is based on one single basic motive, from which all themes are developed. This motive is distilled from the theme of the second movement, which is set in C-sharp minor and is a sequence of variations on a melody taken from the lied Der Wanderer, which Schubert wrote in 1816. It is this set of variations from which the work's popular name is derived.

The four movements are played without a break. After the first movement Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo in C major and the second movement Adagio, follow a scherzo presto in A flat major and the finale, which returns to the key of C major. This finale starts out as a fugue but later breaks into a virtuoso piece.

Movement 4 - Allegro
The finale begins with and, to a degree, maintains fugal elements but is largely a straightforward virtuoso piece. The drama and tension of the preceding music is released in this furious, dramatic run which finally exhausts the motive, if not the performer as well. Several figurations in this movement are arguable Beethoven quotations, especially from Op. 111. C Major is maintained throughout the movement with the exception of modulatory passages which invariably return to the original tonic. The closing passages make extensive use of the German augmented sixth chord, utilized throughout the fantasy as a principal source of harmonic tension. An exuberant coda, in its emphasis and positivity, anchors the work harmonically and emotionally. The approximate performance time is 3:45.

Franz Liszt, who was fascinated by the Wanderer Fantasy, transcribed it for piano and orchestra (S.366) and two pianos (S.653). He additionally edited the original score and added some various interpretations in ossia, and made a complete rearrangement of the final movement (S.565a).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Schubert
• Liszt
• Wanderer
• Fantasy

[musicalidea]

The harmony is so baffling in this piece - as if you're walking down a hallway with many doors and keep getting knocked through a side door which opens up onto another hallway.

[pianist7137]

the part at 1:11 is adorable ^^

[explodingpotato7]

This. WAS EPIC!!!! ♥