As an outrageous virtuoso, Franz Liszt snatched many of his performing tricks from the wildest and craziest note-slinger of all, violinist Niccolo Paganini. He learned from Paganini a host of stage mannerisms that are standard fare for today's superstar-posers, tricks like:
-- the Flinging Hair Trick. You have to grow long locks for this. Work yourself into a sweat hunching over your instrument and fling your head straight back. Airborne sweat droplets provide for additional effect.
-- the Ecstasy Pose. In a tender musical moment, an entranced look upward, eyelids at half mast, wins the hearts of even the most tone-deaf of listeners.
-- the Manly Profile Position. Liszt was the first pianist to turn the piano sideways, exposing his rugged profile to audience adulation.
-- the Heroic Finish. Paganini purposely performed with a bad string on his fiddle. It would break at some point and he would forge ahead to the finish, as heroic and skillfully as ever. Liszt would invariably break strings in the multiple pianos he attacked on stage. The broken strings became trophies for adoring groupies.
But Liszt emulated Paganini in substance as well as style. Like Paganini with the violin, he pushed piano techniques to the limit, composing a repertoire of piano works based on things sensational and difficult to achieve. In the "Grand Etudes," Liszt paid tribute to the great violinist by adopting a series of Paganini etudes to the particular challenges of the piano. As you listen to this theme and five variations, can you identify which variation has...
-- rolling sound blocks alternated low and high?
-- an undulating "bumblebee" melody?
-- spooky floating melody above dancing chords?
-- fortissimo "grand slamming?"
-- the theme played mid-range with dancing chords on top?
