Donationware - How it works

Copyright: we retain the copy right on our arrangements for public performance or any other commercial application but grant you the right to download it free of charge for your own personal use.  Donation: If you enjoy the music I would be grateful if you would make a donation to the charitable Trust Fund run by Croydon Whitgift Rotary Club.

FRanz LiszT

Percussion arrangements

This selection of works by Liszt have been sympathetically remixed on new world percussion instruments and synthesizers to crisp, sparkling effect in different ways to bring out the dynamic qualities of this music. Piano Concerto No1 recorded on a combination of Steel Drums, Gamelan and Marimba for the Piano part and Ocarina, Pan Flute, Vibraphone and more Steel Drums for the orchestra. The original MIDI file on which this recording is based is of exceptionally good quality and this comes through in this arrangement. The  Trancendental Etude No 10 is arranged on our now familiar Steel Drum, Gamelan and Marimba representation of the piano across a wider stereo image. Liszt’s piano transcription of the Rossini William Tell Overture builds up to the passages familiar to television viewers of a certain age. The piano transcription is re-distributed over Steel Drums, Vibraphone, Marimba and Gamelan to exciting effect. La Campanella is a smaller work but responds well too.

Two Rhapsodies and the

Rakoczy March

Liszt published 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies and we are presenting 3 three of them here. The musical form which Liszt adopted for these Rhapsodies is one that had been preserved and promoted by the Gypsy musicians of his home land - Hungary and there are several strong Gypsy themes evident in the pieces we have selected. They were composed for the piano where Liszt demonstrated his extraordinary virtuosity and it may seem like sacrilege to some that we have had the audacity to use synthesizers to render them for these MP3 recordings. For Liszt's Rhapsody No 2 initial recording steel drums were contrasted with Mega Moog and augmented with a Flying Sine synthesizer and Vibraphone. For the latest version pan pipes, harp and gamelan have replaced the  Mega Moog and Flying Sine. For Rhapsody No 12 we just used steel drums, Vibraphone and Flying Sine. For Rhapsody No 15 (Rakoczy March) in A minor  a Celtic harp partnered the steel drums and gave some extraordinary effects in the low registers.