LISZT’S 1873 PERFORMANCE CUTS
1. “Einleitung, Pastorale” third bar after letter F to the fourth bar after letter Q

4. “Hirtengesang an der Krippe” letter E to letter I
5. “Die heiligen drei König” fifth bar before letter C to third bar after letter F
9. “Das Wunder” seventh bar after letter K to the second bar after letter Q
11. “Tristis eat anima mea” second bar of letter B to the eleventh bar of letter G
12. “Stabat mater dolorosa”
   a. from the last bar before letter T to the ninth bar of letter Y
   b. last bar before letter Dd to the second bar before letter Ii

RICHTER’S SCORE



4. “Hirtengesang an der Krippe” letter C to letter G
5. “Die heiligen drei Könige” twelfth bar after letter B to letter F



11. “Tristis anima mea” fifth bar after letter D to letter G

LISZT’S OWN KAHNT SCORE
1. “Einleitung, Pastorale” letter R to letter S
3. “Stabat mater species” one bar before letter E to letter T








12. “Stabat mater dolorosa”
   a. from the twenty-first bar after letter G (Più lento) to ten bars before letter U (Tempo I)
   b. from letter Ee to letter Ff

As discussed above, there were three sets of cuts sanctioned by Liszt: 1873 Weimar performance cuts; the Kahnt score in his personal library; and the 1873 performance score he dedicated to Hans Richter. The chart shows exactly which cuts correspond to which document.

Even cuts within the same movements are not exactly the same. For some reason Liszt chose to tailor the cuts to specific per-formances rather than make a blanket set of abridgments. As mentioned before, it could be difficulties in the performance, or a need to trim the time by a specific amount.

One can see that by far the largest number of cuts took place in the Weimar Herderkirche performance that Liszt himself conducted. This was a performance with 300 in the chorus and an orchestra of considerable resources. Liszt of course did not prepare the chorus himself; that was left to an assistant. Still, one can only wonder at the reasons that at the first complete performance of this magisterial work Liszt cut so much of his own music.

We will never probably know.