Liszt, Franz / arr. Doppler, Franz

Liszt, Franz / arr. Doppler, Franz

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 in E minor for orchestra

arranged for grand orchestra by
Franz Doppler (1821-1883)

Preface
Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies rank among his most popular works. Bristling with impassioned melodies, colorful harmonies, and exotic exuberance, they also reflect the various ways that Liszt sought to situate himself as pianist, composer, and Hungarian cosmopolitan during his long career. Indeed, when he first hit upon the idea of assembling a collection of Hungarian folk melodies in late 1839, he was just beginning what would be an intensive, decade-long concert tour of Europe in which he was celebrated as pianist but underestimated as composer. These eleven pieces, published by Tobias Haslinger between 1840 and 1843, mostly drew on Hungarian folksongs and verbunkos dances that Liszt found either in printed anthologies or heard during his concert sojourns in the eastern part of the Habsburg Empire.1 Around 1846, Liszt revised three of them and composed five more, releasing this later batch in 1847 with the trilingual title of Magyar Rhapsodiak / Ungarische Rhapsodien / R[h]apsodies hongroises. One final revision was yet to come, such that the version of the Rhapsodies hongroises played today in concert halls all over the world only appeared in their definitive versions in 1851 (nos. 1–2) and 1853 (nos. 3–15).

As Liszt revised and published the Rhapsodies, he was also attempting to make Weimar a central hub of modern German culture by encouraging established and promising musicians to visit the small ducal town. Major figures like Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, and Johannes Brahms heeded the call, as did less familiar names—among them, Franz Doppler (1821–1883). As a virtuoso flutist, aspiring composer, and ethnic Hungarian (although born in the Ukraine), Doppler understandably looked to Liszt as an artistic role model and compatriot. This is clear from Doppler’s compositional catalogue, which not only features several successful stage works in Hungarian, but also a large percentage of Hungarian-themed chamber and piano pieces, including the Fantaisie pastorale hongroise, op. 26, the Fantaisie sur des motifs hongroises, op. 35, Variations sur un air hongrois, Ungarische Weisen, op. 41, and a Kossuth-Marsch for solo piano.

Liszt and Doppler first met in 1846. Documents of their friendship come in the form of Doppler’s dedication of his opera Benyovszky to Liszt in 1848,2 as well as Liszt’s counsel to his student Hans von Bülow to “make the acquaintance of [Ferenc] Erkel, Doppler, and [Robert] Volkmann.”3 Doppler’s subsequent visit to Weimar solidified the long-distance relationship, such that by early 1857 Doppler had presented an orchestral arrangement of Liszt’s twelfth Hungarian Rhapsody, which Liszt accepted with “great pleasure.”4

By early 1860, Doppler had orchestrating five further Hungarian Rhapsodies. Later that summer, Liszt asked his cousin Eduard Liszt to “give him my warm thanks for the instrumentation of the Pester Carnaval (in which musical Paprika and Pfefferoni5 are not wanting). He has again been most successful in it, and I intend to push on in the autumn the publication of the six Rhapsodies for orchestra.”6 This publication goal did not come to pass, however, but Liszt clearly thought enough of Doppler’s arrangements to include them in his will, dated 14 September 1860, in which he requested the publication of “Hungarian Rhapsodies for large orchestra, orchestrated by F. Doppler—revised by F. Liszt. N.B.: The name Doppler must not be omitted from the title-page, for he has done the work marvelously.”7

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