Liszt à la Dupré?

From the estate of the great Parisian organ virtuoso Marcel Dupré comes this 1948 arrangement of Franz Liszt's Variations on "Crying, lamenting, worrying, fretting"which is published here as the first edition. Dupré primarily adopts some elements from Liszt's piano version that are missing in the organ version. The idea of supplementing Liszt's organ works in the mirror of their piano versions is based on the - perhaps erroneous? - assumption that Liszt's organ style was not on the same level as his brilliant piano writing.

This principle was also applied by Jean Guillou, for example, in his "version syncrétique" of Prelude and fugue on the name BACH and in older Liszt organ editions (e.g. Straube's) there are always interventions in the original musical text. Whether such an intelligent and visionary composer as Liszt was "incapable" of dealing with the instrument and its possibilities cannot be discussed here, but in any case requires critical scrutiny, as a comparison of the two original versions reveals strong idiomatic differences in the notation, depending on the instrument.

Incidentally, it is unclear which of the two original Liszt versions was written first; more recent research (Michael Heinemann, Martin Haselböck) places the organ version first. It remains to be seen whether adaptations of the musical text, as Dupré does here, should not be left to the performers, or in other words: anyone who can master works such as this one should also have sufficient knowledge of the instrument and its possibilities to make certain interventions themselves to the best of their knowledge and belief.

The problem goes even further: Dupré naturally also adds various registrations, manual changes and articulations, which must be seen against the background of his - thoroughly dogmatic - performance practice and the French symphonic instruments at his disposal. How should we deal with this? Are we now playing "Liszt à la Dupré"? In any case, this realization of Crying, complaining ... provides an interesting insight into the "kitchen" of a great virtuoso and should, especially in comparison with the two originals, but also with Dupré's own edition of the three great Liszt works (Bornemann 1941), which interestingly differs greatly in the registrations, provide one or two suggestions.

Franz Liszt: Variations on "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen", organ arrangement by Marcel Dupré; edited by Jeremy Filsell, BU 2771, € 15.00, Dr. J. Butz-Musikverlag, Bonn 2016, first edition