Claudio Arrau 21 32 0.66
Daniel Barenboim 21 32 0.66
Lazar Berman 18 29 0.62
Jorge Bolet 19 30 0.66
Alfred Brendel 19 29 0.66
Nikolai Demidenko 21 33 0.64
Ian Holtham 18 29 0.62
Vladimir Horowitz 17 26 0.65
Jen$ Jandó 20 31 0.61
Paul Lewis 19 30 0.63
Yundi Li 19 30 0.63
Stephanie McCallum 21 31 0.68
Cécile Ousset 19 29 0.66
Mathieu Papadiamandis 19 30 0.63
Mikhael Pletnev 22 33 0.67
Ernest Schelling 16 25 0.64
Hüseyin Sernet 19 30 0.63
André Watts 19 29 0.66
Findings
Average timing proportion 0.64
Bar proportion 0.60
Average 0.62
Conjugate golden ratio 0.62
Conclusion
If the golden ratio hypothesis is accepted as plausible then it supports common aural
experience that the middle curtain of the Liszt Sonata contributes to overall musical
satisfaction by being a natural way of dividing the Sonata. Postscript: The present
author’s own 1991 recording shows a timing proportion of 0.62 (18:29).
GOLLERICH
August Göllerich was born on 2 July 1859 in Linz and died there on 16 March 1923. In
1873 he gave his first public performance at a benefit concert in Wels. In 1882 at
Bayreuth he saw Liszt for the first time and was introduced to Wagner. In April 1884
Göllerich met Liszt in the Schottenhof in Vienna with the help of Liszt pupil Tony Raab,
and Liszt invited him to Weimar as his pupil.
On 31 May 1884 Göllerich witnessed Liszt’s piano masterclasses for the first time and on
1 June 1884 played for Liszt in the salon of the Starr sisters in Weimar. He was a pupil
and amanuensis of Liszt from 1884 to 1886. In November 1885 he was with Liszt in
Rome and in February 1886 in Budapest, then in Weimar. He and Cosima Wagner were
the only persons actually at Liszt’s bedside when he died at Bayreuth on 31 July 1886.