FRANZ LISZT : Beethoven-Liszt The Complete Symphonies (Leslie Howard) 5CD (1998) APE (image+.cue), lossless

So wrote Liszt at the opening of his preface to his monumental series of transcriptions of the nine Symphonies of Beethoven. The original French text of this preface had appeared in the earliest editions of the transcriptions of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, which were published in 1840, so the tone of reverence which might well have been expected of the man Liszt, retired in Rome in 1865, transpires to have informed his thoughts all along. In the excellent Neue Liszt-Ausgabe, which corrects many an engraving error of all previous editions, there is a wonderful preface by Imre Mezö which recounts with great clarity the genesis of all of these works. There is unfortunately no room to reproduce the article here, but the present writer’s debt for many details of chronology is gladly acknowledged.
Liszt’s general term for these transcriptions (and several other literal transcriptions of orchestral music) is partition de piano (‘piano score’). His usage of this expression is far more restricted than his application of such terms such as transcription, fantasy or paraphrase, and, in his words, ‘I wish to indicate my intention to combine the performer’s wit with the effects of the orchestra and to make the different sonorities and nuances felt within the restricted possibilities of the piano’. Most importantly, his intention in these offerings is not to vary or elaborate upon the originals in the bar-for-bar reproduction of them, but to exploit the manner in which the piano might convey the orchestral textures to the fullest.
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