Fantasie on Two Motives from Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro"
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The Fantasie on Two Motives from Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" (also known as the Figaro Fantasy) is an operatic fantasy by Franz Liszt. Liszt began the work in 1842, and he performed it at least once in Berlin in the following year. However, it was never published. Liszt's manuscript is incomplete and contains no tempo indications, dynamics, or interpretive directions. The Fantasie was published for the first time in 1912 by Breitkopf & Härtel, edited by Ferruccio Busoni. The full title of the edition was "Franz Liszt Fantasie über zwei Motive aus W. A Mozart's Die Hochzeit des Figaro nach dem fast vollendeten Originalmanuskript ergänzt und Moriz Rosenthal zugeeignet von Ferruccio Busoni".
Liszt based this piece on two arias from the opera The Marriage of Figaro: "Non più andrai" and "Voi che sapete". The opening is a very free paraphrase of "Non più andrai", followed by a more faithful arrangement of "Voi che sapete". "Non più andrai" returns afterward, followed by three variations on this theme. The coda is very similar to the fanfare at the end of "Non più andrai" in the Mozart opera.
The original Liszt manuscript contained an additional 15 pages of music devoted to the minuet from Don Giovanni. Busoni obviously did not consider this section worthwhile and eliminated it for his edition; it has even been suggested (Sitsky, 235) that Liszt never intended the minuet to be part of his fantasy and the manuscripts were shuffled together by accident. In addition to this cut, Busoni added some small sections, including 16 bars at the end, and put in extensive markings and pianistic suggestions.
The Figaro Fantasy was performed extensively by Busoni, his student Egon Petri, and was later championed by Vladimir Horowitz and Grigory Ginsburg. However, it has fallen out of the standard pianist repertoire. Stephen Hough and Jean-Yves Thibaudet still perform this work occasionally. Alan Marks recorded the Fantasie for Nimbus Records in 1992. Recently, the Australian-born pianist and composer Leslie Howard has attempted to reconstruct the work as Liszt intended, and has also published and recorded the newly-recast work.
[edit] References and external links
- Larry Sitsky, Busoni and the piano : the works, the writings, and the recordings, pages 235-236. Westport, Conn. and New York: Greenwood Press. 1986. ISBN 0-313-23671-2.
- Kenneth Hamilton, "Liszt Fantasises — Busoni Excises: The Liszt-Busoni 'Figaro Fantasy'". Published in the Journal of the American Liszt Society Volume 30 (1991), pages 21-27.
