Franz Liszt
Love Song (Dedication) from “Myrthen” op. 25 (Robert Schumann)
In his virtuosic piano arrangement of Schumann’s “Widmung” (“Du meine Seele, du mein Herz”), Franz Liszt transformed this intimate song into a dramatic declaration that reaches its powerful climax at the phrase “Mein guter Geist, mein bess’res Ich”, using chords to be played con somma passione. In Liszt’s autograph the melody is overlaid by the song text, but he changes the title to “Liebeslied”. The first edition, published in Leipzig in 1848, retained this heading, and thus the song is still known today under two different titles. In collaboration with Liszt scholar Mária Eckhardt we present this best-known of all of Liszt’s Schumann arrangements in a reliable Henle Urtext quality edition.
About the Authors
Annette Oppermann (Editor)
Dr. Annette Oppermann, born in 1965, trained as a music dealer in Frankfurt am Main and studied historical and systematic musicology as well as modern German literature at Hamburg University.
From 1993 to 1996 she worked as an editor for Sony Classical International in Hamburg; from 1996 to 1999 she was a doctoral candidate in the postgraduate programme Textkritik at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, in January 2000 she earned her doctorate with a dissertation on “Musikalische Klassikerausgaben” (Hans-Joachim Marx, Hamburg). From 2000 to 2008 she worked as a research associate at the Joseph Haydn-Institut in Cologne, and was editor of the Oratorio “Die Schöpfung” in the Complete Edition of Joseph Haydn’s Works. Since February 2008 she has been an editor at G. Henle Publishers in Munich, with a particular focus on vocal music, chamber music and books.
Markus Bellheim (Fingering)
Mária Eckhardt (Preface)
Mária Eckhardt, born in 1943 in Budapest, studied at the Budapest Academy of Music (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, today University of Music), and in 1966 she graduated with a diploma in choral conducting and teaching music. After holding different posts at the Hungarian National Library Széchényi and at the Institute for Musicology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences she worked at the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum and Research Centre of the Liszt Academy of Music, of which she was Head between 1986 and 2009.
Eckhardt has been awarded numerous prizes for her Liszt research, in Hungary, and also in Europe and the US. Alongside Franz Liszt, her main research interests include the musical life of the 19th century and Hungary’s musical history.