Thoughts on Liszt’s Rigoletto Paraphrase (July 7, 2025)

As you will see, my last three posts are videos from my concert at the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York.

Now that I am back in Japan after having performed a successful concert yesterday at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, I am spending time thinking about my experiences in New York and how my performances, both as a soloist and collaborative artist, have given me insights into my overall work as a pianist.

First of all, when I am playing solo works I am the only one responsible for the interpretation. Elements like tempo, rubato, and volume are factors for which I have to take full responsibility.

In a very different way however, when I am a collaborative pianist I must, as the name suggests, collaborate.

This means I must communicate fully with the other soloists, in this case the singers, not only to gain a full understanding of their interpretation but also their needs in terms of breath, tempo, timing, pauses, and where they would like to place particular emphasis on words and phrases.

This process is by its very nature careful and exacting because at the end of it all artists want to make sure the message of the composer comes through in the best and fullest way possible. This also means that a lot of time must be given to preparation, as well as understanding the fullest meaning of the score.

In the case of the Rigoletto Paraphrase, as one example of a solo work, I needed to take apart each melody and put it back together on the basis of how Verdi first put it into the original quartet that inspired it.

My next goal was to make sure I made each of the melodies within the transcription “sing” as did the singers in the original quartet, so that the listener could essentially savor each melody.

Above are the words of each of the four melodies Liszt uses in the Paraphrase.

Below are four different performances of the original quartet.  Do you see how each is different, depending on the singers?  Enjoy!