Liszt and nineteenth-century Russian music

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relationship between Liszt and nineteenthcentury Russian music. It is well known that Liszt, during his concert tours, had many opportunities to spread his name across Russia; the composers of the rising Russian national school were deeply impressed by the Hungarian master, as some of Mussorgsky’s assertions can demonstrate: «How many new worlds, perhaps, might have been discovered in talks with Liszt, how many unknown corners we might have explored together; and Liszt, by his nature, is daring and has no lack of courage, and […] it evidently would not be diffi cult for him to take such an excursion with us into new lands». Such considerations are signifi cant especially because they are provided by the leading innovator of The Five, who probably wouldn’t have shown interest in conservative occidental composers. On the other hand, Liszt himself was one of the fi rst European artists to praise and to try to promote – for example – Glinka, Dargomyzhsky and Borodin’s works. These revealing and unusual musical interests were not always shared by Liszt’s traditionalist contemporaries. On this front, there is a document which narrates Liszt’s enthusiasm towards Mussorgsky’s The Nursery: the letter by Adelaide von Schorn to the Russian editor Bessel. Although Émile Haraszti and Màrta Papp demonstrated that this epistle is a historical falsifi cation, nonetheless it might be useful to consider this document as an echo of a real problem: the mutual attraction between Liszt and Russian musicians. What is to determine is the quality of this relationship. This research aims to examine Liszt’s output through two different levels: 1) the analysis of paraphrases and transcriptions of Russian works and melodies (Prélude à la Polka d’Alexandre Porfi ryevitch Borodine. Variation pour piano seul par F. Liszt – S207a; Tscherkessenmarsch aus Glinkas Oper: Russlan und Ludmilla – S406; Tarentelle de César Cui pour piano seul – S482; Abschied Russisches Volkslied – S251; Tarantella di Dargomyzhsky – S483 etc.); 2) the investigation about the actual infl uence of Russian composer’s “non-classical” production on Liszt’s