Totentanz

Item details

• Description +

  • Preface
    
    Do you hear it? It is the trumpet that announces the final judgment. Few will be saved, and many will be condemned to eternal flames. The Beast has been invoked, the tritone has been sung and the dance of the dead has just begun. There is only one way you can be saved... to dance with the dead until the stars fall to earth. 
    
    Totentanz, composed by Franz Liszt, is one of the most complicated works for piano solo. The resistance required, the difficulty and the duration make this piece a real challenge for pianists, and very few have been able to interpret it correctly. 
    
    This arrangement, made for two marimba players, makes the interpretation of this piece more accessible, but don’t be fooled, as the fierceness of the piece and the rapport that must exist between the performers does not detract from that myth of difficulty that precedes the original score.
    
    Virginia Alcarria

• Instrumentation +

  • 2 Marimbas (5 Octave)

• About the composer +

  • Franz Liszt, the virtuoso pianist and composer, was the most famous concert superstar of the 19th century. He was born in what was then the Austrian Empire. His father was Hungarian and his mother was Austrian. At age 6 he took music lessons from his father, Adam Liszt, who worked at the Court of Count Esterhazy, the main sponsor of Liszt's education and career. Liszt continued his music studies in Vienna under Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri.

• Reviews +
  • Review (Percussive Notes, October 2021)

     

    This arrangement of “Totentanz” is an exceptional version of the composer’s original piece for orchestra and piano solo. It is a faithful representation of the original, with the piano solo and orchestral accompaniment interwoven in the two marimba parts.

    
    Both parts include four-mallet playing that is comparable to any solo on the market, in terms of virtuosity and skill required. As a piano player, I am impressed by the piano-like arrangement of the two voices that lend themselves beautifully to be faithfully reproduced on the marimba. Markings that are usually reserved for piano are included, such as staccato; these markings indicate the advanced level of nuance needed to interpret and perform this work.

     

    “Totentanz” is definitely a piece that would define a group of two professionals or highlevel collegiate students. The many cadenzaesque moments thus require the performers to be effective communicators with one another, as they are simultaneously communicating to the audience. This is a beautiful, faithful representation of the composer’s original intent!

     

    —Cassie Bunting
• Credits +

  • Front Cover graphics and layout: Arantxa Melero
    Photo: Aleksander Szpakowicz
    Engraving: Virginia Alcarria
    Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark
    Copyright © Edition SVITZER
    www.editionsvitzer.com

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