FRANZ LISZT, Funérailles, transcription pour orgue de Lionel Rogg. Lemoine 27395 (Theodore Presser Co., sole selling agent). $15.95. It is a peculiar contradiction that, for all its quintessential pianism, at least some of the piano music of Franz Liszt seems manifestly adaptable to the organ. Lionel Rogg, taking his cue from Liszt’s own examples, such as the Prelude and Fugue on BACH and Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,” finds a similar adaptability in this, another of Lizst’s most famous piano works, and the result is compelling. “Funérailles” is from a set of ten piano pieces entitled Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, composed between 1842 and 1852. Like much of Liszt’s music, it leans away from classical formal schemes, and the opening material, which seems so promising for later development, proves to be merely introductory and does not reappear. Here the introduction is a large crescendo over a pedal-point, which Rogg—writing in the familiar language of the French romantic organ, G[rand], P[ositif], R[écit]—turns to fine account through the gradual unenclosing of the jeux d’anches. What is most significant throughout the work, however, is the inescapable fact that Liszt “registers” at the piano. The familiar way in which he builds-up a theme, for example, in three octaves in the two hands is, in effect, a form of “16, 8, 4,” and the massive chords that often serve to accompany this, a kind of “two-manual” writing. Rogg capitalizes on this by simplifying the texture notationally, while retaining it registrationally. There are three main themes in “Funérailles,” roughly, A-B-C-A¢-B¢-C¢ (with the restatements drastically shortened). The first, marked pesante, appears first in the deep register of the clarinet in the Récit, accompanied by the Positif, and makes its way to the Great, accompanied by Récit and Positif. There is a brief passage (mm. 72–75) where Liszt has the main melody in an inner voice, which, it turns out, can be thumbed-down on two manuals by one hand perfectly well. The pianistic accompaniment in the second theme (lagrimoso) translates well as held notes in the voix celeste and in the pedal. Rogg begins to enliven the texture here by rendering Liszt’s original eighth- and quarter-note motions as triplets and sixteenths. The third theme, an “heroic” passage with quick staccati in the lowest register would pose a problem if given exclusively to the pedal; Rogg merely specifies 16¢ registration on a separate manual, and reserves the use of pedal for the final measures only. Liszt’s trademark climax of thundering octaves in both hands (mm. 151–55) is given as broken octaves in two hands, with a slightly variegated pedal. Liszt himself was a virtuoso organist who came to witness full-blown romantic organ design within his own lifetime, and it would be a fit field for investigation if Rogg and other capable practitioners were to explore even further the phenomenon of piano-organ adaptability in Liszt.

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