Looking back in 1876, Liszt admitted candidly to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel that his “Wagner transcriptions” had “only served as modest propaganda for Wagner’s noble genius, using the meagre possibilities of the piano”. In fact, in around 1850, Wagner’s operas Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin – which would later be so successful – were only being performed at the Weimar Court Theatre under Liszt’s baton. Liszt was inspired to compose his Tannhäuser Paraphrase by performances in Weimar of the overture in 1848 and of the whole opera in February 1849. Liszt’s piano arrangement of the overture is a technically brilliant piece of the highest order. It is a further milestone in Henle Publishers’ series of Liszt’s Wagner arrangements.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
