Noctave
The piece
The three Liebesträume began as songs for voice and piano, which Liszt himself arranged for solo piano and published in 1850. The third comes from a setting of a poem by Ferdinand Freiligrath, “O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst”. The melody first appears in the middle of the keyboard, surrounded by arpeggios; it returns with more fervour in B major, then in C major, before a final, settled return in A-flat. Two cadenzas of rapid runs punctuate the journey. Four notes have been corrected here against the Kistner edition.
At the start, the melody is shared between the thumbs of both hands, right inside the arpeggios: it has to sound louder than everything around it, like a tenor voice. The left hand then covers wide arpeggios, up to 17 semitones in a single chord, at five notes per second: keep the wrist loose and prepare each stretch ahead of time. The range, from a low A-flat to a high G, and the four flats, to which the modulations add many accidentals, call for careful reading. In the cadenzas, do not chase speed: aim for even, light runs.