Hungarian Historical Portraits

Abstract

I propose to discuss three letters of Liszt not usually mentioned in connection with the history of the Bungarian Historical Portraits known up to now. In a letter from Budapest written on February 26, 1885, the composer told Olga Meyendorff he had composed some 40 pages of Hunganan music that, month: a rhapsody for the exhibition album (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 18) another rhapsody for his old friend Abranyi (Bunyarian Rhapsody No. 19), a Csardas obstine', and a very funeral march.l While still in Budapest in the first half of April, Liszt also wrote a brief Preludio funebre. One year after the composer's death, the Hungarian funeral march and the piece of funeral music were published by Gollerich through the firm of Breitkopf und Hartel, under the title Tra?bervorspiel und Trcluermarsch; he omitted from the title of the funeral march the word Hungarian, upon which Liszt had laid special emphasis in his letter. This Hungarian funeral march is of course the one upon which Liszt based one of the pieces in the Hunyarian Historicat Portraits. In the first half of June in the same ytsar, Liszt attended two concerts of his own music in Antwerp. From there he wrote on June 8 to the publisher Taborszky in Budapest saying he would send him some short Hungarian piano pieces of his in early July, and orchestrate them at a later date. Their title was Dem Andenken Szechenyi, Deak, Eotvos, Teleki, Vorosmarty, Petofi. Petofi had already been published by Taborszky; Liszt mentioned in the letter that he intended to add a number of closing chords in the new edition. As a seventh piece he proposed adding Mosonyis Trauerklange (Mosonyis Grabgeleit), which Taborszky had likewise published earlier. He wrote that all the new works were ready in a manuscript, and that he only needed z copyist. He would give Taborszky further details about publication when he