Liszt - 2 Csárdás, S225 (Filipec)

The 2 Csárdás are amongst the most interesting of Liszt’s later works. Less free than the Hungarian Rhapsodies and more specifically Hungarian rather than gypsy in tone, full of spare lines, angular rhythms and the harmonies of the future, they point the way to Bartók. The first of them is a short Allegro which discontentedly begins as if in A minor, passes to A major for passages in similar mien to a Valse oubliée with their mephistophelian irony, and after much sequential modulation, ends quietly but unsettled in F-sharp minor. The better known Csárdás obstinée takes up where the first Csárdás leaves off with a repeated F-sharp before the ostinato accompaniment begins, with its left-hand F-sharp major triad contrasted with a falling phrase in the right-hand beginning on a descending tetrachord (A-G-F#-E) of Hungarian type (the work is remarkable for this kind of asymmetrical harmonic relationship between melody and accompaniment, but the piece is really in B minor/major, and before the coda strepitosa there is a marvellous transformation of the first theme into B major in repeated octaves). Overall, the incessant focus on the main motif gives this work a very strongly hypnotic character.