Talk:List of compositions by Franz Liszt

Deletion?
Why is this article up for deletion, yet no discussion has been made. Isn't it common sense to talk first on wikipedia? All other major composers as well as most minor or completely unimportant composers (to use the term loosely) have articles listing their work. I don't see any problem with this article that requires anything more than minor improvements. I am removing this notice and hope to discuss this like reasonable editors. Thank you, AlexanderLevian 01:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The article was kept, but in the future please do not remove the Afd tags until the discussion is closed. Thanks!.-- JForget 01:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand and apologize. I didn’t realize that a discussion had been started in a separate page. I didn’t know and it won’t happen again. Thank you, AlexanderLevian 17:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes
I think it is better not to include individual pieces in the articles. If one plans to make a whole listing of all individual pieces, like the 19 hungarian rhapsodies, the 3 series of 12 etudes, and the 12 christmas pieces, the purpose of this list will be lost since it will be impossible to take in the whole picture. The purpose of this list is not to show all of Liszt's overwhelming oevre, but to make it possible to easily browse through it. These kind of lists would be more appropriate to include in articles related to them (like the list of all 12 transcendental etudes that is available in the main article). I suggest that it should be as it was before. We should strive to make it remain a browseable list. --Funper (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your concern, but somewhat disagree. It seems silly to me to create an entire article to list 2 movements of a piece that I otherwise know nothing about.  By contrast, have you seen the tremendous detail on the Schubert page, particularly regarding the piano solo works?  But a better example is the break-out of the song cycles.  Consider how difficult it would be to locate the song "Halt" (D795 no3) if you didn't know to which collection it belonged.  Listing out the 19 Hungariam Rhapsodies would have little value since they are not individually named.  But a work like "St. Francis of Paula walking on the waves" is rarely referenced as "Legend No 2".  Unless you are a Liszt expert, I think it would be hard to find.  At least that was my experience when I came searching these pages for this work and couldn't find it.  I had to go to Google to figure out where it fit into Liszt's amazingly large output.  Then I thought that info may be useful to others.  So I added it to the page.  Personally, I would prefer to have one monster article of the works, instead of two, even though it would be slower to load over my dial-up connnection.  But I'm not a wiki expert either, so I beg your patience.  Is there a page length limitation or something?  Les Andersen (talk) 22:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oki I am all for if the etude-titles are removed (since you agree; "little value since they are not individually named". Un Sospiro wasn't even a title of Liszt's). --Funper (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

dating S.306
quick Google books search suggests "by 1848" for the first version of the song S. 306, from two different (maybe not independent) books, one of them Searle's - is there enough evidence for 1847 even with that question mark? Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

R numbers?
Anyone know about these? I can't find any info on them, but I noticed on a new release that a second number is listed, and Naxos seems to have added them to other pages too (though it's possible it's been there for a while and I simply haven't payed attention). Various Google searches indicate a couple of books that use the number, and a bunch of sites seem to 'suddenly' have them, but I cannot find ANY reference to what the catalog actually is. Though this is unrelated to the Serle catalog, there's no "general" Liszt works page so I'm asking here. If anyone has any incites, they'd be appreciated (and certainly mention of it should be welcome in the article, to keep this on WP topic). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 06:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The R numbers seem to be outdated, I don't think there are any newer revisions since the 1930s when Raabe compiled it. --Funper (talk) 01:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, so it's an older catalog, then. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See Catalogues of classical compositions.
 * Peter Raabe created the structure that Searle later employed. Maybe he copied it from the BWV.  For my money, the structure is not worth a sausage.  I much prefer a single chronological sequence, but we have what we have.  Had Raabe not been a Nazi, maybe the R numbers would have been retained, but that was not possible in the post-war world, so Searle got the nod.  Lucky his name wasn't Robinson or Ramsbottom.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

New Title??
This article seems to be begging for a humorous title. How about 'Liszt of compositions'? It would be funny!

J.Gowers (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe on Uncyclopedia... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:01, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Merging with another article
This article has topics similar to List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.351 – S.999) and should be merged into one article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inyrface (talk • contribs) 13:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. There may be this distinction, but that is not a valid reason to seperate the catalogue into two articles. --2.245.90.48 (talk) 02:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Merged. ---Funper (talk) 16:37, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Space after dot
Is it correct that there's no space after S.? --77.0.249.20 (talk) 19:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not a matter of correctness, but of style. Some people prefer S.258, others like S. 258.  Some like J.S. Bach, others like J. S. Bach.  Some chop and change depending on the context.  To my eye, lists like this one look better without spaces, but in some other places I prefer the spaces to be there.


 * What's always important is not to mix styles in the same article. As the title does not use spaces after the dots, it would be inappropriate to use them in the text.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Structural confusion
Searle's catalogue is divided firstly into what he calls "Original works" (S.1–S.350) and "Arrangements, transcriptions, etc" (S.351 onwards). It would be very tempting for someone new to Liszt to believe that anything with an S number lower than 351 was an original concept by Liszt that did not draw on the works of any other composers. But that's hardly the case.

No less than 47 of the works in the first group are based on works by other composers, and these include Berlioz (S.120), Beethoven (S.122), Chopin (S.127), Paganini (S.140, 141), Rossini (S.149, 150), Bach (S.179, 180), Handel (S.181). Mendelssohn (S.257), Meyerbeer (S.259), and many others.

Full details are at Franz Liszt's treatments of the works of other composers.

The Searle catalogue has been confusing me ever since I encountered it 45 years ago. For example:


 * How can a work titled Études d'execution transcendante d'après Paganini, S.141, which is essentially a transcription of 6 pieces by Paganini, be classified as an "original work", when the extra-Liszt source of the material is even included in the title?


 * Why is Fantasia on (themes from) 'The Ruins of Athens', S.122, considered an "original work", when Capriccio alla turca sur des motifs de Beethoven (Ruines d'Athènes), S.388 is merely an "arrangement or transcription"? They both draw on the same Beethoven material, and they both rework it to some degree.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well unfortunately Serle is dead, so we can't ask him. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Circular reference S.110
The first Mephisto Waltz originates in the second of the Two pieces after Lenau's Faust S.110. In this article, S.110 links to the general Mephisto Waltzes article, where the section on the First Mephisto Waltz, discussing its origin, has a link back to this page. The S.110 link should go to a separate article on the original Two pieces after Lenau's Faust, or be removed, otherwise the links make us go around in circles. Zwart (talk) 18:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Table of contents in new list
I am not knowledgeable enough to implement a TOC within the new layout of the list. I have read some section about tables and headers but my wikicoding skills are far too weak and I do not know where to begin. Is it do-able? Are there any relevant help pages to read? --Funper (talk) 01:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I have made a workaround, however I'm not sure if this is the "right" way to add a TOC when your article is just a huge table. --Funper (talk) 05:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Composer names
I am planning to add composer names as headers in the work table, however I will not add those links to the TOC since I believe it will become unnavigable. --Funper (talk) 02:15, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

On correspondence between Transcendental Etudes and the early series of 12 Exercises (S. 136 & S. 137)
I took the liberty to delete most of the references that links individual pieces of the 12 early etudes and their respective Transcendental Etudes. The previous editor of that bit made an assumption that these pieces correspond by their respecive numbers. Looking at the pieces individually the correspondence is obvious from pieces nos. 1 to 5, 10 and 12, then exercise no. 7 seems akin to Transcendental no. 11, and that's where first impressions end, and from here on it is obvious that the connections between the pieces are not simple, and one shouldn't link them automatically. Since I believe in Wikipedia's primal principles, in that editors are not supposed to publish original research or, even worse, easy going assumptions, own interpretations of facts, subjective musical observations, even if they seem obvious, I left the space blank. With a question marks for place holder, because not sure how tables work. Please confer sources before completing the table again.Anapazapa (talk) 17:48, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * There's still a link from Grandes Etudes to the Transcendental Etudes. It's easy to see why someone would make this mistake, but it's the wrong page. I'm deleting the link. JECompton (talk) 20:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I was wrong. The main links point to the Transcendental Etudes since that page addresses these earlier versions of etudes. I've reverted them again. JECompton (talk) 20:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I've studied and compared the scores of the three versions (and played them), and there is a one-to-one correspondance with the 12 pieces (13 if you include Ab Irato) of the different versions. Some are extensively rewritten but still obviously the same composition, while several are changed so much that they are really completely different compositions, though you can still see where one came from the former (which is the point of those version references in the list/table).


 * Someone on WP elsewhere was suggesting that the 3rd versions are "simplified" from the previous two, but I see them as Liszt just being much more poetic and less pendantic (like a Czerny exercise)... similar to what Chopin did with HIS Etudes, who I believe inspired Liszt to do his "transcendental" versions.


 * In any case, the correspondances (version references) in this WP list/table are not opinions or speculation by WP contributors; they do have a source: the original Searle catalog (Grove).
 * chuckstreet (talk) 11:17, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Bold in lead
See [this link] for a discussion relating to the use of bold in the lead. UnnamedUser (open talk page) 04:04, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Unreadable columns
Without further ado, the columns "Forces" and "Notes" should be removed, although I have no issue with them being remade if they are substantially different. I don't mind keeping a copy of them on my user space if anybody would find those details useful for further editing. These notes are largely incomprehensible, at least in their current form. If they are to be refactored in a presentable way, they would likely take so much space to be completely untenable, and should probably be described in other articles instead. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Please read my reasoning carefully, which does not mention the article being too long. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * ....except, they are perfectly readable. I could, maybe, understand the issue of some of the abbreviations on the 'forces' column if you aren't musically inclined (which could be solved with either a legend or some interwiki linking), but otherwise I don't see any issue. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The abbreviations and numerations in both the Forces column and the Notes column are incomprehensible to readers without particularly specific knowledge of classical music. Linking any of these to other articles simply wouldn't be enough, and making a legend for this would be completely untenable unless there were far fewer details. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * And by removing that column to remove essential information. What next? The 'title' column maybe? Who needs all those silly words right? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:48, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Split
This article is currently 440k, and completely unwieldy to read and edit. It looks like both original compositions and arrangements can be easily split out into their own (still huge!) articles, which would at least help. pauli133 (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That's how it used to be, but doing it comes at the cost of losing the unified table. Remember that this split was done at the behest of Serle, who included Liszt's own music in arrangement section for works he made more than one instrumentation (so included are for instance the Liebestraume, as they are transcriptions of songs), but Serle was also wrong or at least inconsistent in a few cases which means any split list won't actually be correct. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, if Serle doesn't like it, he can rise from the grave and speak up.
 * Really, if things would be wrong on split pages, they're wrong now. That's an orthogonal issue. pauli133 (talk) 00:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well regardless it's still a somewhat arbitrary split despite seeming otherwise. It's a list of the compositions, and it should have the entire list. If it's split you can't easily, for instance, see all the works from a specific year, etc. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 06:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with splitting the article into arrangements and compositions, but it's clear that the notes column is far too large and unaccessible to the majority of readers. Removing the column would reduce the necessity for the article being split. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Why not just remove the list all together? The majority of WP readers won't care. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:46, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * And for a real answer...well here's the thing. This article was heavily edited by someone who later turned out to be a sockpuppet troll, you can see above one of their responses was to just add three more unknown catalogs (if those even exist...) instead of paring it down. As I said above, the LW column could be removed, it's basically never used (I can't remember seeing it on any recording). The notes column should NOT, under any circumstances be just exorcised, it's quite important, especially in Liszt's music, to note what pieces are related to what....however it could for sure be trimmed down -- no need to for instance say "X was arranged as Y", but keeping the "Y is an arangement of X" is, if they don't have the same name. Same for first/original versions, etc they are important but the definitive version won't necessarily need the note (for instance, Les Preludes '4th version' could excise the note completely). I'm also not sure every second version listed is actually considered one in Howard's revision of the catalog. Another thing that could very easily be done, and in fact most composition lists in WP do this, is grouping multi-movement works into a single row -- there's no reason each piece in Années de pèlerinage as a for instance needs to have its own entry (though the alternates probably should). So pretty much every entry with a '/' in the catalog number (such as 161/4).
 * All the editing of this should be done with care by someone who actually has knowledge about this music. The 'forces' column as well, the instrumentation is also a very important part of a piece of music and the fact anyone would think to remove it shows they really have no clue about things. The 'key' column could probably be removed, outside of generic titles (where it should be part of the title) that doesn't matter too much in a list like that (even articles themselves won't always say). The headers of each section also could be removed (and in fact, I find looks ugly, and when you sort the table they pointlessly group at the bottom).
 * Look, I understand this is a long article (the longest on WP?) but killing important info because of it isn't the answer. Better to find solutions that preserves what needs to be there and kill the fluff, not just wholesale remove stuff because you're ignorant about what's important. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

FTD
Whoever FTD is, all the numbers and descriptions by FTD should be removed, unless wikipedia is doing a new S numbers.

MinkyuKim0204 (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Liszt's La Esmeralda transcription
Started a discussion at La Esmeralda (opera) over the authenticity of S 476 and S 477/477a. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:54, 30 October 2023 (UTC)