Original or Doubtful? Liszt's Use of Key in Support of His Authorship of Don Sanche

Abstract

In 1825 Liszt and his father were in England, and at a concert on June 16 in Manchester a composition by the thirteen year-old prodigy was performed, entitled New Grand Overture. This was probably the overture to Don Sanche, a one act opera performed in October the same year in Paris. This was to be the only opera Liszt composed, and the 1825 performances were the only ones in Liszt's lifetime. Throughout his composing life, Liszt behaved as though the work did not exist, making no use of its material in his subsequent works. This, and the fact that the work was partly inspired in imitation of Mozart's achievement at a similar age in composing the opera Bastzen et Bastzenne, has tended to reinforce the general musical opinion that the work was a publicity stunt composed largely, if not entirely? by the boy's composition teacher Paer. The situation was not helped by the disappearance of the score, which was re-discovered in 1903 by Jean Chantavoine. It was not until 1977 that the work could be heard in modern times, when it was performed in London. In 1986 it was recorded by Hungaroton and issued on the occasion of the Liszt centenary. The score is unpublished. In Humphrey Searle's catalogue of the works of Liszt, printed in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the first category of works is opera, and Don Sanche therefore figures as S1 in the Searle catalogue. Under the column Composition; first performance Searle writes: 1824-5, collab. Paer; Paris Opera, 17 Oct 1825. A modern thematic catalogue might choose to go further, and on grounds of style dismiss the opera as being a work not by Liszt, consigning it to the category of doubtful works. The Hungarian Liszt scholar Andras Batta, writing of the work in the notes to the records, says: What sort of a style is this? It is certainly not yet a piece of real 19th century, Romantic music. The use of an even, symmetrical beat, the melodic