NOTATIO

I agree with John’s descriptions of Liszt’s notational purposes.

Peter West wrote:While a bass clef E is a bass clef E whichever staff you print it on, the visual effect of making it an inner voice in the left hand (presumably)

The first bar is indeed played by RH. Notice, in the original edition, the bar rests in the bottom staff and the absence of any in the top staff. So the RH is actually notated cross-staff for the first bar and a half! To my eye this is a much more beautiful way to write it than on the “proper” staff, with a clef change mid-phrase (and even mid-beam). It says to me that Liszt himself played it with his RH, but which hand is less important than the sweep of the line itself. The subsequent editions reverse this priority. It reads like an academic insistence on the RH, at the expense of the being able to see at a glance the arc of the phrase.

MJCube wrote:The subsequent editions reverse this priority. It reads like an academic insistence on the RH, at the expense of the being able to see at a glance the arc of the phrase.

indeed!

It sounds like I am indeed "preaching to the choir." I am glad there is such unanimity on this subject.

I should not have omitted the statement that the whole passage is intended to be played by the RH. As mentioned by MJCube, the notation conveys this with the absence of rests in the upper staff. In fact, I don't think that most pianists playing this from the original notation would consider starting the passage with the LH: it is too counterintuitive. And the way the whole passage lays out on the keyboard suits the RH.

Knut, you are right. I have somehow gone off into a Composers vs Engravers thread! But this thread has become a kind of potpourri, which is fun.

Those apparently plate engraved opaque beams are a mystery aren't they? It has to have been done on a printed sheet. I think I see here and there traces of staff lines that were accidentally taken out. But OMG the amount of effort involved and why? I imagine poor summer interns working with those little metal erasing guards with the holes in them and bottles and bottles of white-out.

John Ruggero wrote:But OMG the amount of effort involved and why? I imagine poor summer interns working with those little metal erasing guards with the holes in them and bottles and bottles of white-out.

Haha, I can picture that too.

Why indeed! I can see the value of this with a lot of awkward triple or quadruple beam angles, but it hardly seems worth the trouble with beamed 16th notes, especially not with eraser and white-out.

I hadn't noticed this until last night. Opaque and French beams. Boosey, 1947:

Boosey is perhaps buttering their bacon here, but interesting none the less.

This is getting curiouser and curiouser. I found an example that does't use French Beams, but does use opaque beaming in couple of "problematic" areas side-by-side with normal beaming! Stravinsky 3 movements from Petroushka for piano (Edition Russe de Musique 1922, Reprinted Boosey 1947) I can't show this music because of copyright, but two examples occur in the last three measures.

I believe Petroushka 3 movements is in public domain since it was originally published before 1923. If the Boosey is truly a reprint and not a revised version, it too is PD.

cGilmore: Is that Symphony of Psalms?

IMSLP says that the work is public domain only in the US. I don't know whether that makes it OK for me to post on the internet which is international.

Any copyright experts out there?

As I said briefly in the other thread, I’ll say more fully here. See Wikipedia on Fair use. Nobody’s selling anything here, nor can it possibly be construed that these excerpts allow anyone to use a copyrighted work without purchasing it, so no one’s losing sales either. The most we are giving away is in links to IMSLP, which has their own people handling copyright issues. I say, Scan away! These examples are very educational.