Réminiscences de Don Juan

Réminiscences de Don Juan (S. 418) is an opera fantasy for piano by Franz Liszt on themes from Mozart's Don Giovanni. It is extremely technically demanding. For this reason, and perhaps also because of its length and dramatic intensity, it does not appear in concert programmes as often as Liszt's lighter and more popular pieces, such as the Rigoletto Paraphrase. As Ferruccio Busoni says in the preface to his 1918 edition of the work, the Réminiscences carries "an almost symbolic significance as the highest point of pianism." Liszt wrote the work in 1841 and published a two-piano version (S. 656) in 1877. The two-piano version bears a structurally strong resemblance to the original.

The piece begins with music sung by the Commendatore, both from the graveyard scene where he threatens Don Giovanni ("Di rider finirai pria dell aurora! Ribaldo audace! Lascia a' morti la pace!" — "Your laughter will not last, even till morning. Leave the dead in peace!") and from the finale where he condemns Don Giovanni to Hell. The love duet of Don Giovanni and Zerlina follows ("La ci darem la mano"), along with two variations on this theme, then an extended fantasy on the Champagne aria ("Fin ch'han dal vino"), and finally the work concludes with the Commandatore's threat.

In contrast to perhaps the majority of opera fantasies composed during the nineteenth century, Liszt's Don Giovanni paraphrase is a much more tightly controlled and significant work. Where the standard opera transcription is merely a collection of famous tunes,

"The finest of [Liszt's] opera fantasies...are much more than that: they juxtapose different parts of the opera in ways that bring out a new significance, while the original dramatic sense of the individual number and its place within the opera is never out of sight." (Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation, p. 528)

While not reaching the heights of difficulty of the 1838 version of Liszt's Transcendental Études (Études d'exécution transcendante), the Réminiscences makes a great number of extreme technical demands on the pianist, among them hair-raising passages in chromatic thirds, numerous tenths, and an instance of rapid leaps in both hands across almost the whole width of the keyboard that, in the words of Heinrich Neuhaus, "with the exception of Ginzburg, probably nobody but the pianola played without smudges."

Alexander Scriabin injured his right hand overpracticing this piece and Balakirev's Islamey, and wrote the funeral march of his First Piano Sonata in memory of his damaged hand.

Celebrated recordings of the Réminiscences include those by Jorge Bolet, Earl Wild, Simon Barere, Grigory Ginzburg, Louis Kentner, Charles Rosen, Leslie Howard and Leo Sirota. More recent versions have been recorded by Marc-André Hamelin, Valentina Lisitsa, Matthew Cameron, Min Kwon, and Lang Lang.

External links

• Réminiscences de Don Juan: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project

Franz Liszt
Operas	Don Sanche Sardanapale (unfinished)
Symphonic poems	Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne Tasso Les préludes Orpheus Prometheus Mazeppa Festklänge Héroïde funèbre Hungaria Hamlet Hunnenschlacht Die Ideale
Other orchestral works	Faust Symphony Dante Symphony Mephisto Waltzes
Works for piano and orchestra	Hungarian Fantasy Piano Concerto No. 1 Piano Concerto No. 2 Piano Concerto No. 3 Totentanz
Original solo piano works	Transcendental Études Grandes études de Paganini Ab Irato Three Concert Études Two Concert Études Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli Années de pèlerinage Dante Sonata Feuille d'album Ballade No. 1 Ballade No. 2 Consolations Harmonies poétiques et religieuses Deux légendes Sonata in B minor Sarabande and Chaconne Weihnachtsbaum Dem Andenken Petőfis Nuages gris La lugubre gondola Valse-Impromptu Mephisto Waltzes Bagatelle sans tonalité Mephisto Polka Grand galop chromatique Csárdás Hungarian Rhapsodies Glanes de Woronince Rondeau fantastique Rhapsodie espagnole Liebesträume
Opera paraphrases for piano	Réminiscences de Don Juan Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni
Family	Adam Liszt (father) Cosima Wagner (daughter)
Related articles	Life Musical works Later works Treatments of the works of other composers Franz Liszt Academy of Music International Franz Liszt Piano Competition Lisztomania
Book:Franz Liszt List of compositions by Franz Liszt