Liszt - Fantasie über Themen aus Mozarts Figaro und Don Giovanni, S697 (Batsashvili)

Liszt composed his Fantasy on themes from Mozart’s two masterly operas Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni by the end of 1842 and he performed the piece in Berlin on 11th January 1843. The piece was not quite finished in manuscript, but the lacunae - the end of a brief transition in the closing section (bars 574-576) and the end of the work (bars 602-616) - are so insignificant that he probably tried out an improvised solution in performance (for unknown reasons, Liszt never finished the manuscript). A peculiarity of the Fantasy is that Liszt illustrated themes from two operas in it: In addition to the themes employed in his well-known Réminiscences de Don Juan, Liszt uses three further melodies from Don Giovanni: a minuet, a contradance and a waltz. The work concerns itself with two arias from Le nozze di Figaro - Figaro’s Act 1 aria (“Non più andrai“ - his teasing and admonitory injunction to Cherubino to take life seriously and to cease ubiquitous flirting) and Cherubino’s Act 2 arietta (“Voi che sapete“ - a serenade to the Countess, Figaro’s advice notwithstanding), and the dance scene from the Act 1 finale of Don Giovanni (the masked figures of Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and Don Ottavio come to accuse Don Giovanni of the murder of the Commendatore and the rape of Donna Anna, and find themselves just in time to prevent the rape of Zerlina). After a dramatic introduction (based upon Figaro’s aria but ending with a hint of what is to come), Cherubino’s gorgeous arietta (3:25) is given a gentle, florid setting, transposed to A flat from the original B flat. This theme occurs only here in the entire work, then is heard no further. After a brilliant transition, Figaro’s aria returns in its original bright C major and in the reprises of this theme Liszt presents marvellously inventive pianistic and harmonic variations. But instead of proceeding directly to Mozart’s coda, the aria falls away to reveal the Don Giovanni dance scene, where Mozart’s score calls for two additional onstage dance orchestras to add to the pit orchestra, simultaneously adopting various tunes for different social groups - the celebrated minuet in 3/4, a rustic dance in 2/4, and a fast waltz in 3/8. As in the opera, the minuet is first given alone, in F major, and Liszt retains this key for the combination with the rustic dance. Liszt does not add the third theme as Mozart does, but keeps it for separate treatment, and gives it rather more substance than it has in the opera, combining it with fragments of the rustic dance and excellently, parts of Figaro’s aria. There follows a modulatory section which allows Liszt to toy with parts of all four themes before the transition; this uses earlier Figaro material alongside the minuet theme, and leads to the coda, which finally completes Figaro’s aria and the work itself. Bearing in mind George Bernard Shaw’s perceptive observations upon Liszt’s musical interpretation of the morality of the Don in the Don Giovanni Fantasy, it might be similarly if cautiously suggested that the combination and disposition of the themes in the minuet scene in the present work also adumbrate a moral fable: that the flirtatiousness of Cherubino which may seem harmless enough at the beginning could be leading to the unforgivable behaviour of a Don Giovanni, unless good common sense (See Figaro: “Non più andrai...“) hinders him from doing so. In 1912, Ferrucio Busoni published a greatly truncated version of the present fantasy under the title “Fantasie über zwei Motive aus W. A. Mozarts Die Hochzeit des Figaro“ (commonly known as the ‘Figaro Fantasy’). His honourable intention to make an unknown work of Liszt available was somewhat compromised by the edition remaining silent about exactly how great was Busoni’s contribution. Nor is there any mention of what and how much he omitted from Liszt’s manuscript: a comparison with the autograph manuscript reveals that Busoni omitted sections from Don Giovanni altogether which implies that he was obliged to shorten by 245 bars (!) Liszt’s original manuscript consisting of 597 bars and compose 37 new bars in order to make the remaining sections suitable for performance. Not much was required by Leslie Howard (the lacunae previously mentioned) to make performable this grand piece, and it remains quite a mystery why Busoni suppressed so much of the work in his edition. This is a re-upload of an old video which had a number of severe sync issues along with having my own markings and fingerings scribbled across it (which I forgot about when scanning). Apologies.