Were there any novelties in piano technique created by Liszt or at least frequently used by him which were featured in ragtime and later jazz styles as well? I would like to answer this question with a few examples:

There is not much to discuss regarding the left hand. The march-type bass had always been notated as pendulum bass, in the case of odd metres (Schubert waltzes, etc.). New elements can only be found in the right hand. Nobody had ever used the right hand with the octave-plus-inner-third pattern before Liszt. This became one of the most frequently used pattern by ragtime composers. (Example 1 and 2)

But Example 2 (by Joplin) can also be compared to the popular cancan, the Friska of the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody (Example 3). The ragtime-like left hand is obvious and the middle fingers of the right hand hit the appropriate chord note between the octave (generally a third above the thumb or below the little finger, sometimes the fourth, depending on the harmony). This was unimaginable before Liszt as he was the very first who used his hand in such position and required his fingers to be so independent and flexible to make all this possible. Such independence was first necessary for the fugues of Bach but the position of the hand (which is the most important here) was totally different. This is partly connected with the development of the piano, too since most of the pieces written before Liszt could be played with a looser hand hung from above, which was impossible on the pianos with much heavier touch made in Liszt's time.

Regarding Example 3, the truth is that the Friska theme is neither of Hungarian origin nor one of Liszt's own melodies but was composed by Heinrich Ehrlich (1828?-1899), a German pianist as Liszt admits in a letter dated 30th March 1864 from Rome. It is a twist of fate that this melody is still probably the best known in Liszt's oeuvre.

It is well known that Liszt used symmetry (or repetition) as a basic principle when choosing a fingering and also in his composing technique. He played the same material (even if in a different key) with the same fingering. One of the best examples is the beginning of Totentanz (Example 4). Even though the jazz example (Example 5) is only one-part, the principle is the same. (This is one of the favourite passages of the great stride pianist, Teddy Wilson (1912-1986).

If this sounds forced one should think of the fact that Liszt consciously practiced scales with using three, four or five fingers in a row trying to find the greatest number of possibilities and then he chose the simplest solution. Here is a ‘Fats’ Waller passage (Example 6) for the above phenomenon. (Each phrase of the passage must be played with 4-3-2-1 or 5-4-2-1 fingering.)

A harmonized example, the end of the first strain of Kitten On The Keys, Zez Confrey's (1895-1971) most popular piece (Example 7) also shows how the pianist can slip from the black key to the white in such cases. Liszt also liked this technique (Example 8) altough he never used it as blues pianists do, for instance, imitating blues intonation with the help of using slight rhytmic nuances.

Using triple-time division in double-time tunes was a common feature of novelty rags. Let us compare an excerpt of Danse macabre (Example 9) with a passage from Jingles by James P. Johnson (Example 10) and the trio part of the already mentioned Kitten On The Keys (Example 11).

The above mentioned example from Liszt's Sonata in B minor (Example 8) already leads towards the mixture that was one of the favourite composing techniques of the French impressionists. This can be found not only in Liszt's works but in the playing of ‘Fats’ Waller (Example 12) and in Billikin Rag by E. J. Stark (1868-?) (Example 13), as well. The Waller-example can be compared to the left hand of the 6th Paganini etude (Example 1) as both show the same approach in piano technique: a stable fingering in ascending parts, using two notes there and a triad here. We may add that almost the same mixture as in the Waller piece, can be found in the Rondo movement of Beethoven's op. 2., C major Sonata (Example 14).

And finally a Liszt-example for the mixture, in this case the two hands move in contrary motion. (Many say that Joplin stood out among the ragtime composers because he could write melodic bass lines and because he had the two hands move in contrary directions.) The example is from the end of the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody and Liszt here, too uses the ‘ragtimish’ third-plus-octave pattern (Example 15).

The frequent use of the black keys and keys with many flats or sharps is also a typical romantic phenomenon (see the last example from the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody). This feature is very common in ragtime compostitions as well. Charles Hubbard Thompson (1891-1964) played exclusively in black key tonalities, Scott Joplin, too wrote much in A flat, D flat and G flat major (Gladiolus Rag, Leola, Easy Winners etc.) but he was no doubt surpassed by James Scott (1885-1938) in preferring black keys. The minds of ragtime composers worked almost exclusively in flat keys, sharp keys are rarely found. The only exception is Gottschalk (Souvenir de Porto Rico, 1857) but he cannot be treated strictly as a ragtime composer and his ‘love for sharps’ is rather a sign of his classical roots.

I have to mention the tremolo here, one of Liszt's technical inventions. The tremolo existed only in precisely notated forms before Liszt, written out in sixteenths in general as it was used rather for strengthening the intensity of the given harmony (like in the C minor Fantasy by Mozart) than as an effect as Liszt used it (The Fountains of Villa d'Este is a good example). According to Liszt, tremolo should be executed ‘with the highest number of possible notes’, i.e. at the fastest tempo, almost as a percussive effect. (This can even be done in ppp as Liszt indicated it in his transcription of Wagner's Love Death of Isolda.) Tremolo (tremolando) was a common feature from the twenties in the playing of novelty rag and swing pianists including Zez Confrey, Billy Mayerl, ‘Fats’ Waller, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and others. And what's more, folk (and concert) blues pianists used right hand tremolo the most frequently above the melodic bass lines of the left hand.

Mentioning similarities and displaying examples could be continued endlessly but harmonization would be even more important than parallelisms in piano technique, one would think. And one might be right thinking like this but the truth is that most of the featured harmonic patterns of ragtime can be found even in pre-romantic European style. Romantic harmonization can be traced with greater success in later jazz styles, mainly in the swing era. The almost futuristic harmonic inventions of Liszt are to be studied with twentieth-century music in most cases, at least if we try to investigate their impact on jazz. I will give you a few examples, however, to try and find out what obviously romantic features were used by ragtime composers, too.

Our starting point must be the fact that ragtime and jazz brought almost no harmonic inventions and novelties. They had new elements rather in chord structure and spacing and (especially modern) jazz musicians used the old harmonies in new contexts, new surroundings. They were different but not pioneers. If someone digs deep into music history, he will easily find an equivalent of every possible jazz chord in works of earlier romantic, many times classical and even baroque composers. Despite this, jazz composers added a lot, since random romantic novelties, even though if sometimes in a bit transformed version, became frequent features of their music.

The most common (and thus most trivial, pop-like) harmonic characteristics of ragtime and early swing pieces are not romantic inventions but were first used in much earlier musical periods. (These are: using the tonic-dominant-dominant-tonic chord structure at the beginning or the circle of fifth, dominant ending at half strain, fifth-cycle, authentic ending.) What romanticism, similarly to all musical ages compared to the preceeding ones, harmonically added, was the extension of already-used chords, the use of harmonies in altered, richer format. This was still based on the classical functional order. (And now I can step forward mentioning the later period of Liszt when, far more ahead of his time, he opened the gates of atonality.) In romanticism ninth chords became common instead of seventh chords, and sometimes eleventh, thirteenth chords were used. Major seventh chords appeared, so did sixth chords (a major or minor chord plus a sixth which is functionally mistaken in classical music as it is defined as first inversion, i.e. as the six-five form, of the chord a third lower). Sometimes the harmonies were not even similar to their original form. As in Bach's works even the conscious dissonance was the result of linear thinking and good part-writing, in romanticism this was purposly executed as vertical, harmonic extensions (or dissonance). Most romantic composers were pianists, thus part-writing was not as important for them as the overall sound itself. (This might be the reason that many romantic composers, including Liszt, asked someone else to do the orchestration. They thought, they did the biggest part of the job by writing the piano arrangement.)

A tiny but important and expressive example is the change of the dominant-tonic ending. The Re, used in the soprano in the early ‘classical’ form, becomes Me in romanticism as in the F major Ballad of Chopin, for instance (with a Re as a passing note in between, the same was already used by Beethoven). (Example 16)

Building the harmony in fourths in the right hand (in Example 16) preceeds later eras as I point out in detail in Chapter XVIII. However, the soprano and alto, according to the rules of acoustics and classical part-writing, both resolve to Do, the root of the tonic. Jazz pianists take this much less seriously, in most cases, especially in early jazz, they just want to get a richer sound by playing as many notes as possible. Joplin was more traditional in this field but, in my opinion, he sometimes uses illogical chord spacings in the left hand. Regarding our original example: later La appears below the Te in the dominant chord (there are examples for this in Wagner's works), thus the right hand plays four notes. Then Me becomes Ma (lowered Me), later the soprano resolves to Re instead of Do, the original Te leading-note is lowered to Ta that, of course, resolves to La, not to Do. Many times a fifth, that is not in the original resolution, is added and it is often chromatically preceded by a lowered La (Lo). Finally, even the bass changes, becoming De (raised Do) instead of So, thus the dominant chord changes so much that it contains nothing from its original notes. Everything is altered, all resolutions are chromatic but functionally this is the very same V-I (dominant-tonic) relation as in classical music. (Example 17)

The above alterations cannot be found exlusively in jazz since it was romantic composers who changed the original ‘clothing’ of chords. I do not want to discuss this in every detail as hundreds of pages of examples could be displayed. One excerpt from Verdi's Aida should do: the so-called ‘Mercy choir’ of Aida's second act. This, whatever way we look at it, is pure jazz, only nuances of phrasing save the listener from the feeling that they are sitting in a bar. (Example 18)

As far as form, harmonies and many times also melody are concerned, most of Joplin's waltzes could be compositions by Schubert as well. The passages and interludes of his waltz, Bethena would be surprising even in a romantic composition, and they are not only unique but beautiful, too. It is worth studying the modulations of the piece, especially the second interlude (where it goes from G major to F major by using enharmonic reinterpretations and chromatic steps). (Example 19)

One of Joplin's greatest and most classical-like harmonic passages can be found in the middle of the C section in Gladiolus Rag. Instead of a detailed analysis it should suffice to say that it modulates to F minor from the original D flat major (i.e. to Me minor) then it returns to D flat major through A flat major by using very nice chromatic steps. The keys for the modulation (and enharmonic reinterpretation) are the diminished and minor subdominant chords. Meanwhile there is a (partly chromatic) descending scale in the bass just like in the best works of Bach. (Example 20)

One of Joplin's favourite tricks was the modulation into Me minor at the first half of the sixteen-bar strain. Then, with the help of a chromatic bass, he returned to the dominant chord of the original key within one beat with a Me-Ma-Re bass in the last bar. This harmonic pattern is used, for instance, in the C section of Elite Syncopations. Examples for modulation into Me minor at half strain can be already found in Chopin's op. 64. no. 1. waltz, in bars 46-53. (Example 21)

Or let us look at the major seventh chord, which is most common in romanticism on the first degree. This chord was often used also in jazz music, the best example may be the opening bar of the dixieland evergreen Struttin' With Some Barbecue with the ascending arpeggation of a major seventh chord. The use of augmented triads, too, became frequent in romanticism. This is also often featured in jazz, take Billy Strayhorn's Take the ‘A’ Train as an example. Liszt often uses different chords at the same time. This technique is also commonly used by jazz musicians when (speaking of pianists) the right hand plays the same chord a half step higher than the left hand then it steps back to the original harmony. Or when the musician improvizes above the basic chord with its extremely distorted (or extended) form. (Clarinettist Pee Wee Russell was the greatest master of this technique among non-pianists.) This leads to the simultaneous use of different scales where linear and vertical thinking can hardly be separated. This phenomenon resulted in the whole-tone scale, too, which was a novelty in Liszt's music but then was often used by jazz musicians. Even Hungarian Aladár Székely's 1920 Nervous Rag contains a whole-tone scale. (Example 22) One of Teddy Wilson's favourite right-hand runs was a descending whole-tone scale, generally starting from A, while the chord changed from F major to B flat major in the left hand. (Example 23)

I will stop enumerating the examples as I think it is obvious by now that these similarities are not random coincidences but ragtime and jazz musicians consciously used the inventions of European romanticism.