Franz Liszt on Music Theory Print

Années de pèlerinage

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Album d’un voyageur, S.156#

This original collection of 12 pieces was the immediate result of the infamous liaison with Countess Marie d’Agoult as well as the births of Liszt’s three children. It stands as one of Liszt’s most original contributions to the piano literary, arguably even more so than its revised counterpart, the Première année.

Première année: Suisse#

“Première année: Suisse” (“First Year: Switzerland”), S.160, was published in 1855. Composed between 1848 and 1854, most of the pieces (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9) are revisions of Album d’un voyageur: Part 1: Impressions et Poesies and Part 2: Fleurs mélodiques des Alpes. “Au lac de Wallenstadt” (No. 2) and “Au bord d’une source” (No. 4) received only minor revisions, while “La Chapelle de Guillaume Tell” (No. 1), “Vallée d’Obermann” (No. 6), and especially “Les cloches de Genève” (No. 9) were more extensively rewritten. “Églogue” (No. 7) was published separately, and “Orage” (No. 5) was included as part of the definitive version of the cycle. # Au lac de Wallenstadt (At Lake Wallenstadt) in A major – Liszt’s caption is from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto III, stanza 85): “Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.” In her Mémoires, Liszt’s mistress and traveling companion of the time, Marie d’Agoult, recalls their time by Lake Wallenstadt, writing, “Franz wrote for me there a melancholy harmony, imitative of the sigh of the waves and the cadence of oars, which I have never been able to hear without weeping.” # Pastorale in E major – This piece is a revision of the third from the second book of the earlier Album, with its central section removed in the process. # Au bord d’une source (Beside a Spring) in A major – Liszt’s caption is from Schiller: “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.” # Orage (Storm) in C minor – Liszt’s caption is again from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto III, canto 96): “But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? / Are ye like those within the human breast? / Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?” # Vallée d’Obermann (Obermann’s Valley) in E minor – Inspired by Étienne Pivert de Senancour’s novel of the same title, set in Switzerland, with a hero overwhelmed and confused by nature, suffering from ennui and longing, finally concluding that only our feelings are true. The captions include one from Byron’s succeeding canto 97, (“Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,–could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul–heart–mind–passions–feelings–strong or weak– / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, / Bear, know, feel–and yet breathe–into one word, / And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword”) and two from Senancour’s Obermann, which include the crucial questions, “What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?" # Eglogue (Eclogue) in A major – Liszt’s caption is from the next canto of the Pilgrimage: “The morn is up again, the dewy morn, / With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, / Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, / And living as if earth contained no tomb!” # Le mal du pays (Homesickness) in E minor –The work is prefaced by a quotation from the ‘Troisième fragment’ of Senancour’s Obermann: ‘De l’expression romantique, et du ranz des vaches’ (‘on Romantic expression, and the Swiss pastoral melody employed in the calling of the cows’)—‘Le romanesque séduit les imaginations vives et fleuries; le romantique suffit seul aux âmes profondes, la véritable sensibilité …’ (‘The Romanesque attracts those of lively and florid imagination; the Romantic satisfies only profound souls, real sensitivity …’). # Les cloches de Genève: Nocturne (The Bells of Geneva: Nocturne) in B major – Liszt’s caption is from stanza 72, earlier in the Byron’s Pilgrimage: “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me”.

Au bord d'une source

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Analysis#

The main theme of Au bord d’une source comprises a pattern of arpeggiated semiquavers in the right hand with short notes in the left, firstly played below the right hand and then played two octaves higher, above the right hand. This constant crossing over of hands places considerable technical demands on the amateur pianist. Liszt links the various sections of the piece together using passages of intricate scale and arpeggio patterns ascending high into the upper register, descending back down and transforming back into the melody; this allows the whole piece to flow as one. The piece has many intricate difficulties that are belied by the calm mood with which a successful performance is often imbued.

Bagatelle sans tonalité

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Program#

The Bagatelle, like the Mephisto Waltzes, could be considered a typical example of program music, taking for its program an episode from Faust, not by Goethe but by Nikolaus Lenau (1802–1850). The following program note, which Liszt took from Lenau, appears in the printed score of the Mephisto Waltz No. 1: There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song."

Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne

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Christus (Liszt)

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Composing#

When Liszt, after his prolific Weimar years, moved to Rome in 1861, the majority of his works for the next ten years would be religious music for choir. The composition of his most famous oratorio, Christus, occupied Liszt from 1862 to 1866, with shorter or longer pauses. He finished the score by the end of September 1866, but he wished to make some revisions and corrections, and therefore the work was not completed until the December of that year. ‘Christus’ was published in 1872 and premiered in the Protestant church at Weimar on 29 May 1873.

Concerto pathétique

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History and significance#

In 1851 Breitkopf & Härtel published the solo piano work Grosses Concert-Solo (in modern editions as Grosses Konzertsolo) (S.176) by Franz Liszt. Though not as popular as the later Piano Sonata in B minor by the same composer, the work achieves significance by the fact that it anticipates the Sonata as a large-scale non-programmatic work. It shows structural similarities to the Sonata and obvious thematic relationship to both the Sonata and the Faust Symphony. One unpublished earlier version of the work exists, titled in French in the manuscript Grand Solo de concert (S.175a). This version differs structurally from the published Grosses Concert-Solo, thus revealing the existence of interesting material for a study on the genesis of Liszt’s gradual innovations in constructing a large-scale musical organism, which were to come to full fruition in the Sonata. In 1866 a two-piano version was published under the title Concerto pathétique (S.258/2) which, though not differing structurally from the Grosses Concert-Solo, introduces a more effective layout of the musical thoughts, mainly due to an innovative concerto-like treatment of the two-piano ensemble. The initial conception of a projected piano concerto can further be proved by a number of extant piano concerto arrangements by various composers, including orchestra sketches by Liszt himself (the unpublished manuscript containing the piece’s original (French) title Grand solo de concert) (S.365). While the solo piano version is rarely performed today, the Concerto pathétique has become a repertoire piece of the two-piano genre. In 1885, Liszt thanked Eduard Reuss for a new arrangement of the Concerto.

Consolations (Liszt)

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Title#

The source of the title Consolations may have been Lamartine’s poem “Une larme, ou Consolation” from the poetry collection Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Poetic and Religious Harmonies). Liszt’s piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is based on Lamartine’s collection of poems. Another possible inspiration for the title are the Consolations of the French literary historian Charles Sainte-Beuve. Sainte-Beuve’s Consolations, published in 1830, is a collection of Romantic era poetry where friendship is extolled as a consolation for the loss of religious faith. The Consolations are also referred to as Six pensées poétiques (Six poetic thoughts), a title not used for Breitkopf’s 1850 publication but for a set published shortly thereafter, in the same year, by the Bureau Central de Musique in Paris.

Csárdás (Liszt)

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Csárdás macabre, S.224 (1881–82)#

This is perhaps the best-known of the three csárdás. with the opening in parallel octaves before the famous bare fifths section which is without precedent in Liszt’s output. Still more intriguing is the second-subject stage of the structure; this is either a parody of the Dies irae or a quotation from the Hungarian folk song, “Ég a kunyhó, ropog a nád.” Both theories have their advocates. The composer did not indicate what he meant, though he did write on the manuscript after he had finished it, “May one write or listen to such a thing?” A favorite question of some critics is whether the fifth of the opening bar is a flattened supertonic appoggiatura or as an actual tonic. Such tonal ambiguities become common in Liszt’s late works.

Dante Sonata

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Background#

The Dante Sonata was originally a small piece entitled Fragment after Dante, consisting of two thematically related movements, which Liszt composed in the late 1830s. He gave the first public performance in Vienna in November 1839. When he settled in Weimar in 1849, he revised the work along with others in the volume, and gave it its present title derived from Victor Hugo’s own work of the same name. It was published in 1858 as part of Années de pèlerinage.

Dante Symphony

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Composition#

Liszt had been sketching themes for the work since the early 1840s. The French poet Joseph Autran recalled that in summer 1845, Liszt improvised for him “a passionate and magnificent symphony upon Dante’s Divine Comedy” on the organ of the empty Marseille Cathedral at midnight, and later invited Autran to collaborate with him on a Dante oratorio or opera, which the poet failed to pursue. In 1847, he played some fragments on the piano for his Polish mistress Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. At this early stage in the composition, it was Liszt’s intention that performances of the work be accompanied by a slideshow depicting scenes from the Divine Comedy by the artist Bonaventura Genelli. He also planned to use an experimental wind machine to recreate the winds of Hell at the end of the first movement. Although Princess Carolyne was willing to defray the costs, nothing came of these ambitious plans and the symphony was set aside until 1855. In June 1855, Liszt resumed work on the symphony and had completed most of it before the end of the following year. Thus, work on the Dante Symphony roughly coincided with work on Liszt’s other symphonic masterpiece, the Faust Symphony, which was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s drama Faust. For this reason, and because they are the only symphonies Liszt ever composed (though certainly not his only symphonic works), the Dante and Faust symphonies are often recorded together. In October 1856, Liszt visited Richard Wagner in Zürich and performed his Faust and Dante symphonies on the piano. Wagner was critical of the Dante Symphony fortissimo conclusion, which he thought was inappropriate as a depiction of Paradise. In his autobiography, he later wrote: Liszt agreed and explained that such had been his original intention, but he had been persuaded by Princess Carolyne to end the symphony in a blaze of glory. He rewrote the concluding measures, but in the printed score, he left the conductor with the option of following the pianissimo coda with the fortissimo one. Liszt’s original intention was to compose the work in three movements: an Inferno, a Purgatorio and a Paradiso. The first two were to be purely instrumental, and the finale choral. Wagner, however, persuaded Liszt that no earthly composer could faithfully express the joys of Paradise. Liszt dropped the third movement but added a choral Magnificat at the end of the second movement. This action, some critics claim, effectively destroyed the work’s balance, leaving the listener, like Dante, gazing upward at the heights of Heaven and hearing its music from afar. Moreover, Liszt scholar Humphrey Searle argues that while Liszt may have felt more at home portraying the infernal regions than the celestial ones, the task of portraying Paradise in music would not have been beyond his powers. Liszt put the final touches to the symphony in the autumn of 1857. The premiere of the work took place at the Hoftheater in Dresden on 7 November, 1857. The performance was an unmitigated disaster due to inadequate rehearsal; Liszt, who conducted the performance, was publicly humiliated. Nevertheless, he persevered with the work, conducting another performance (along with his symphonic poem Die Ideale and his second piano concerto) in Prague on 11 March, 1858. Princess Carolyne prepared a programme for this concert to help the audience follow the unusual form of the symphony. Like his symphonic poems Tasso and Les préludes, the Dante Symphony is an innovatory work, featuring numerous orchestral and harmonic advances: wind effects, progressive harmonies that generally avoid the tonic-dominant bias of contemporary music, experiments in atonality, unusual key signatures and time signatures, fluctuating tempi, chamber-music interludes, and the use of unusual musical forms. The Symphony is also one of the first to make use of progressive tonality, beginning and ending in the radically different keys of D minor and B major, respectively, anticipating its use in the symphonies of Gustav Mahler by forty years. Liszt was not the only symphonic composer who was inspired by Dante’s Commedia. In 1863, Giovanni Pacini composed a four-movement Sinfonia Dante (the finale depicts Dante’s triumphant return to Earth).

Deux Légendes

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No. 1: St. Francis of Assisi’s sermon to the birds#

St. François d’Assise: La Prédication aux oiseaux, S.175/1 is based on a story of St. Francis of Assisi. It is said that, one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds.” The birds surrounded him, intrigued by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. The key of the piece is A major, often associated by Liszt with religious sentiment. The piece contains representations of birdsong, one of the few examples in Liszt’s works of onomatopaeia.

Don Sanche

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Composition#

The opera appears to have been ready as early as September 1824. It is known that on 20 June 1825, Liszt presented an overture in his second Birmingham concert. This is probably the one from Don Sanche since no other overture exists from this period. The manuscript contains many passages that are reminiscent of the style of his compositions teacher Ferdinando Paer, who admittedly helped Liszt with orchestration. Liszt received a mere 170 francs for his opera (approximately 2100 dollars in 2016 USD). Later in the 1840s, Liszt tried to pursue a career as an opera composer. He planned, sketched, but never completed several other operas. Among them a work in the Italianate style known as Sardanapale, of which 111 sketched pages exists.

Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam"

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Form#

The piece consists of three sections: # Fantasy: opens with the “Ad nos” theme and then turns quiet and contemplative. The theme returns and eventually a climax is reached. A second climactic passage follows, after which this section ends. # Adagio: serves as a development section, beginning quietly, the theme moving to major keys now from the minor keys of the preceding section. The piece brightens a bit in the latter half of this section. # Fugue: serves as the finale, but also, within the sonata-form, as the recapitulation and coda. Elements from the previous sections appear again. The piece ends with a triumphant coda, on full organ. A typical performance lasts nearly half an hour, although performances of the composition by Liszt and by Winterberger lasted, according to contemporary reports, an average of forty-five minutes.

Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni

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Manuscript#

Liszt’s autograph manuscript for the nearly completed work is currently housed at the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik/Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, Weimar (shelf mark GSA 60/I 45). There is no title, date or place of composition, or signature on the manuscript, which consists of 50 unnumbered pages of music. Much of the music is based on two arias from the opera The Marriage of Figaro: Figaro’s “Non più andrai” (Act I) and Cherubino’s “Voi che sapete” (Act II). Fifteen pages are devoted to the dance scene from the Act I finale of Don Giovanni. Howard writes: The manuscript shows his method of composition of such a fantasy quite clearly: the broad outlines, such as the new themes or sections, are commenced on new pages, and space is left to concoct transition material. The introduction, the two pieces from Figaro, the Don Giovanni minuet and the coda are each in self-contained parts of the manuscript. On several occasions Liszt has marked some repeated figures for possible excision by placing the fragments in brackets with a question mark over them. These tiny tightenings of the structure add up to just a few bars … The penultimate section breaks off in the middle of some transitional material which does not join happily to the coda. Liszt’s incomplete manuscript contains no title, no tempo indications, and very few dynamics and articulation marks. The ending is some few bars from complete, and there is another lacuna towards the return of the Figaro theme. Liszt probably tried out an improvised solution in performance, judging by the rather insignificant gaps.

Faust Symphony

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Structure#

The first clue as to the work’s structure is in Liszt’s title: “A Faust Symphony in Three Character Sketches after Goethe: (1) Faust, (2) Gretchen, (3) Mephistopheles.” Liszt does not attempt to tell the story of Goethe’s drama. Rather, he creates musical portraits of the three main protagonists. By doing so, though this symphony is a multi-movement work and employs a male chorus in its final moments, Liszt adopts the same aesthetic position as in his symphonic poems. The work is approximately 75 minutes in duration.

Funérailles

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Composition#

The piece is composed of four distinct sections, with three main themes repeating throughout. The first section, labeled “Introduzione,” is a dark and gloomy adagio movement whose opening bars evoke the sound of muffled bells from across a dreary battlefield. Its forlorn right-hand chords are offset by thundering, sforzando left-hand tremolos, which are interrupted and calmed into submission by the sudden call of battle trumpets, leading into the piece’s next theme. In its second section, the piece presents a somber F-minor funeral march that modulates into a stunning lagrimoso A-major melody, relying heavily on augmented fifths to convey what can be viewed as a sort of dismal sense of hope. The piece then leads into a heroic, powerful warrior march, whose valiant and triumphant chords are backed by powerful cascades of ostinato octaves in the bass. This theme builds in intensity until it reaches a fortissimo peak, at which point it breaks suddenly into its conclusion. It is in this conclusion that Liszt reintroduces each theme from the piece, beginning with the funeral march theme, this time more powerful and emphatic. He then briefly reiterates parts of the A-major theme before bringing back the left-hand octave-driven warrior march. However, rather than allowing this theme’s intensity to take control again, he limits its duration and ends the piece with a sudden drop into quiet, open staccatissimo chords.

Glanes de Woronince

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External links#

, Aleksandra Mikulska, Orangerie (Darmstadt) 2016
, Mikulska album Souvenirs, 2018

Grandes Études de Paganini

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Étude#

Original version (1838), S. 140 – Dedicated to Madame Clara Schumann
Étude No. 1 in G minor “Tremolo”, marked Andante Non troppo – lento cantabile, which is after Paganini’s Caprice No. 6 in G minor (with the introduction and coda of No. 5). Begins with a prelude of rapid arpeggios and scales and then enters the main étude section, as the name suggests, the piece is meant to employ tremolos. Voicing and dynamics are important in tremolos, and adding to its difficulty is the fact that many tremolos are marked to be played by the left hand only.
Étude No. 2 in E major, marked Andantino capricciosamente, which is after Caprice No. 17 in E major. Contains many rapid scales and octaves and requires elegance and quality of tone.
Étude No. 3 in A minor, marked Allegro moderato, which is after the final movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, and containing the first theme of the final movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in E major.
Étude No. 4 in E major, marked Andante quasi allegretto, which is after Caprice No. 1 in E major.
Étude No. 5 in E major “La Chasse”, marked Allegretto – dolcissimo, which is after Caprice No. 9 in E major.
Étude No. 6 in A minor, marked Quasi presto a capriccio, which is after Caprice No. 24 in A minor, with a slightly altered theme and 11 variations. The technically demanding work abounds with rapid octaves, scales, arpeggios, and high pitched themes.

Grandes études de Paganini#

Revised version (1851), S. 141 – dedicated to Madame Clara Schumann
Étude No. 1 in G minor “Tremolo”, marked Andante – Non troppo lento, which is after Caprice No. 6 in G minor (with the introduction and coda of No. 5).
Étude No. 2 in E major, marked Andante capriccioso, which is after Caprice No. 17 in E major.
Étude No. 3 in G minor “La Campanella”, marked Allegretto, which is after the final movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor.
Étude No. 4 in E major “Arpeggio”, marked Andante quasi allegretto, which is after Caprice No. 1 in E major. It had been written on one line only, omitting the usual separate line for the left hand; this was fixed in the new version. Furthermore, its lowest tone is the G 3 , the score thus mimicking a score for violin.
Étude No. 5 in E major “La Chasse”, marked Allegretto, which is after Caprice No. 9 in E major.
Étude No. 6 in A minor, marked Quasi presto a capriccio, which is after Caprice No. 24 in A minor.

Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

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Structure#

The ten compositions which make up this cycle are: #Invocation (completed at Woronińce) #Ave Maria (transcription of choral piece written in 1846) #Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (‘The Blessing of God in Solitude’, completed at Woronińce); #Pensée des morts (‘In Memory of the Dead’, reworked version of earlier individual composition, Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1834)) #Pater Noster (transcription of choral piece written in 1846) #Hymne de l’enfant à son réveil (‘The Awaking Child’s Hymn’, transcription of choral piece written in 1846) #Funérailles (October 1849) (‘Funeral’) #Miserere, d’après Palestrina (after Palestrina) #La lampe du temple (Andante lagrimoso) #Cantique d’amour (‘Hymn of Love’, completed at Woronińce)

Héroïde funèbre (Liszt)

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Background#

The composition of this piece was started in 1830 as a brief sketch for a full symphony, but was dropped by Liszt in the continuing of other works. However, in 1848, there was an uprising in Liszt’s home country of Hungary. One of Liszt’s friends was killed during this revolution, which caused Liszt to revisit his now 20 year old sketch of the Revolutionary Symphony, shortening it and forming the first movement into the commemorative Héroïde funèbre. Liszt said of the program, “In these successive wars and carnages, sinister sports, whatever be the colours of the flags which rise proudly and boldly against each other, on both sides they float soaked with heroic blood and inexhaustible tears. It is for Art to throw her ennobling veil over the tomb of the brave, to encircle with her golden halo the dead and dying, that they may be the envy of the living.”

Hungarian Fantasy (Liszt)

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Bibliography#

ed. Ewen, David, The Complete Book on Classical Music (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965). Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 65-11033
Headington, Christopher, Notes to Deutsche Grammophon 5262148, Liszt: Orchestral Works; Shura Cherkassky, piano; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
ed Walker, Alan, Franz Liszt: The Man and His Music, (New York, Taplinger Publishing Company, 1970).
Collet, Robert, “Works for Piano and Orchestra”
Walker, Alan, Franz Liszt, Volume 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-1861 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).

Hungarian Rhapsodies

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Form#

Liszt incorporated many themes he had heard in his native western Hungary and which he believed to be folk music, though many were in fact tunes written by members of the Hungarian upper middle class, or by composers such as József Kossovits, often played by Roma (Gypsy) bands. The large scale structure of each was influenced by the verbunkos, a Hungarian dance in several parts, each with a different tempo. Within this structure, Liszt preserved the two main structural elements of typical Gypsy improvisation—the lassan (“slow”) and the friska (“fast”). At the same time, Liszt incorporated a number of effects unique to the sound of Gypsy bands, especially the pianistic equivalent of the cimbalom. He also makes much use of the Hungarian gypsy scale.

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

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Background#

The Hungarian-born composer and pianist Franz Liszt was strongly influenced by the music heard in his youth, particularly Hungarian folk music, with its unique gypsy scale, rhythmic spontaneity and direct, seductive expression. These elements would eventually play a significant role in Liszt’s compositions. Although this prolific composer’s works are highly varied in style, a relatively large part of his output is nationalistic in character, the Hungarian Rhapsodies being an ideal example. Composed in 1847 and dedicated to Count László Teleki, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 was first published as a piano solo in 1851 by Bartholf Senff. Its immediate success and popularity on the concert stage led to an orchestrated version, arranged (together with five other rhapsodies) in 1857–1860 by the composer in collaboration with Franz Doppler, and published by Schuberth in 1874–1875. In addition to the orchestral version, the composer arranged a piano duet version in 1874, published by Schuberth the following year. Offering an outstanding contrast to the serious and dramatic lassan, the following friska holds enormous appeal for audiences, with its simple alternating tonic and dominant harmonization, its energetic, toe-tapping rhythms, and breathtaking “pianistics”. Most unusual in this composition is the composer’s invitation for the performer to perform a cadenza, although most pianists choose to decline the invitation. Marc-André Hamelin composed a cadenza that has since become famous for its originality, musicality and playfulness, and Sergei Rachmaninoff also wrote a famous cadenza for his interpretation. Liszt himself wrote several cadenzas for his pupils’ performances of the piece, but they were rarely performed. Other pianists have arranged their own versions of the Rhapsody with changes beyond that of simply adding a cadenza, most notably Vladimir Horowitz in 1953.

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6

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Form#

The piece is divided into three main sections: * Introduction (Tempo giusto – Presto) * Lassan (Andante) * Friska (Allegro) The first part of the rhapsody is an introduction (Tempo giusto), where the left hand of the player plays a steady bassline made up of the chords in the D-flat major scale. Due to the overlapping of the melody over the bars, the piece does not sound as though it is in a rhythm. This is because Liszt did not start the first chord of the piece as an upbeat, which is what many composers have done to relate to the time signature of the piece. The melody of the first part is repetitive, leading to a brief prelude of the friska section’s main theme and ending with a long cadenza mainly using the black keys. The second part (presto) is in C-sharp major (which is simply an enharmonic version of the previous D-flat, not a modulation) and has a lively rhythm, leading to the lassan in B-flat minor. The lassan is played slowly, with a rhythm in improvisational style, again finishing with a large cadenza at the end, leading sequentially to the friska (Allegro) in B-flat major. The melody is played in semiquavers requiring the player to move fast in octaves. The bass line repeats the same strong quaver rhythms. The final part of the piece ends with chromatic scales in octaves moving in contrary motion, leading to B-flat major chords. The piece makes use of the gypsy scale.

Hunnenschlacht (Liszt)

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Structure#

The first section of the piece, marked carries Liszt’s instruction: “Conductors: the entire colour should be kept very dark, and all instruments must sound like ghosts.” Liszt achieves much of this effect by scoring the entire string section to play with mutes, even in fortissimo passages. This section depicts an atmosphere of foreboding and suppressed rage before the battle breaks out. : The second section, , begins with a "" (battle cry) in the horns, which is then taken up by the strings. The main battle theme is then stated, a fully formed version of material from the very opening. This entire section makes use of the so-called gypsy scale, which Liszt frequently used in his Hungarian-themed compositions. In this section Liszt introduces an unusual effect: against the current of the raucous battle music in the rest of the orchestra, the trombones play the ancient plainchant melody “”. Liszt’s own description of this section was of “two opposing streams of light in which the Huns and the Cross are moving.” The "" theme is later taken up by the strings in a quiet, peaceful contrasting section. The music grows in intensity, eventually including an organ and offstage brass section, and it ends triumphantly.

La campanella

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Background#

“La campanella” is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, S. 140. Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced by a “little handbell.” This is illustrated by the large intervals of sixteenth notes in the right hand.

Music#

::Incipit for “La campanella” by Franz Liszt (Grandes études de Paganini S. 141 no. 3) The étude is played at a gentle, brisk allegretto tempo and features constant octave hand jumps between intervals larger than one octave, sometimes even stretching for two whole octaves within the time of a sixteenth note. As a whole, the étude can be practiced to increase dexterity and accuracy at large jumps on the piano, along with agility of the weaker fingers of the hand and muscles within the forearm and wrist. The largest intervals reached by the right hand are fifteenths (two octaves) and sixteenths (two octaves and a second). Sixteenth notes are played between the two notes, and the same note is played two octaves or two octaves and a second higher with little to (depending on the arrangement) no rest. Little time is provided for the pianist to move the hand, thus forcing the pianist to avoid tension within the muscles. Fifteenth intervals are quite common in the beginning of the étude, while the sixteenth intervals appear twice, at the first thirtieth and thirty-second measures. However, the left hand studies about four extremely large intervals, larger than those in the right hand. For example, in bar 101, the left hand makes a sixteenth-note jump of just a half-step below three octaves. The étude also involves other technical difficulties, e.g. trills with the fourth and fifth fingers starting on measure 80 and lasting for 4 bars, and fast chromatic scales starting on measure 73.

La lugubre gondola

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Its genesis is well documented in letters from which we know that Liszt was Richard Wagner’s guest in the Palazzo Vendramin on the Grand Canal in Venice in late 1882. Liszt may have had a premonition there of Wagner’s death which inspired the first version of the work: a piano piece in , written in December 1882 (which remained unpublished until the Rugginenti edition of 2002). This piece was recomposed the next month, in January 1883, and very shortly thereafter arranged for violin or cello and piano. The piano version was published in 1885, with minor changes (this version is today usually called ). This was the only version of this piece published in Liszt’s lifetime. Wagner died in Venice on February 13, 1883, and the long funeral procession to Bayreuth began with the funeral gondola to Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station. Liszt was by now almost certainly considering the piece to be a Wagner memorial, and in 1885 he returned to the string version and replaced the last three bars with a twenty-bar coda. This was probably done before the publication of the solo version, because the new extended string version does not contain the minor alterations in the published solo version. According to Liszt’s correspondence with Lina Ramann, was originally to have been entitled and was to have been dedicated to her. There is an undated manuscript, clearly from the end of Liszt’s life, of a starker version of the piece in for piano solo - virtually a new composition. It remained unpublished until 1927, when it was published alongside the other version of the piece, but with the same title. So since 1927, the piece has been known as , and the hitherto unpublished piece is usually called . The opening single melodic line of can be seen to be inspired by Wagner’s unending melodies, and the unresolved diminished sevenths and unfinished phrases are reminiscent of the Prelude to Wagner’s . Liszt then develops this into a more lyrical, romantic line.

Late works of Franz Liszt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Economy of means#

Compared to the creative abundance of earlier compositions, the music of Liszt’s old age is unusually economic. Given barely enough notes to ensure their existence, his late pieces frequently lapse into monody, then silence. Sometimes a piece is open-ended, simply vanishing. This practice of “abandoning” a work in mid-air had been done previously by Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. Liszt’s practice, however, is more radical. An example of this is in the Mephisto Polka, where the piece is simply deserted at the end, without explanation, dying out on a solitary F-natural. Long passages are spun out on single notes and definite cadences are usually avoided, often leaving the overall tonality of pieces in doubt. A basic rhythmic unit, instead of becoming the foundation of an expansive Romantic melody, now becomes a stark end-product in itself. Throughout the late works, there is a freer, almost improvisatory use of melody, yet one derived from the tightest structural cells Liszt could conceive.

Les Préludes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Genesis#

Les préludes is the final revision of an overture initially written for a choral cycle Les quatre éléments (The Four Elements, 1844–48), on 4 poems by the French author Joseph Autran: La Terre (The Earth), Les Aquilons (The north Winds), Les Flots (The Waves), Les Astres (The Stars). The chorus Les Aquilons was composed and created in a version for male chorus with 2 pianos accompaniment in Marseille in 1844, and the first sketches of the Ouverture des quatre élémens date from 1845, during Liszt’s tour through Spain and Portugal. A manuscript of the overture from 1849 to 1850 shows that the work had by then reached its almost definitive structure and thematic content. After being partially orchestrated, the choral cycle project was abandoned. The overture was revised in 1853–54 as a stand-alone piece, with a new title inspired by an ode by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine, Les préludes. Both the title and the reference to Lamartine’s poem as a suggestion for a programme were added only after the work was almost complete. Contrary to an idea that is still sometimes widespread today, the work was neither written nor even revised after Lamartine: there were no addition of new themes, no addition or suppression or changes in the order of episodes, not even changes of the tonal structure within the episodes, between the last stage of the manuscript of the Ouverture des quatre élémens, and the final revision of 1853-54 under the title Les préludes. The evidence provided in 1986 by musicologist Andrew Bonner has since been agreed by, among others, two musicologists who have devoted book-length studies to Liszt’s symphonic poems, Keith T. Johns and Joanne Cormac. Les préludes is written for a large orchestra of strings, woodwind, brass (including tuba and bass trombone), harp and a variety of percussion instruments (timpani, side drum, bass drum and cymbals). To realize the orchestration, Liszt was helped by two composers: first by Joachim Raff for the manuscripts of 1849–50, then by Hans von Bronsart for the revision in 1853-54 and for minor corrections before publication by Breitkopf in 1856. Although the orchestration was ‘four-handed’, studies on the Raff-Liszt collaboration on the Prometheus Overture, contemporary with the progress of Les quatre élémens, have revealed that Liszt drew up very detailed sketches, rejected or modified almost all of Raff’s proposals, and sought in particular to achieve more transparent textures and more subtle variations in orchestral density.

Les Quatre Élémens

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Genesis#

Liszt’s starting-point for the cycle was Les Aquilons (“The North Winds”), a male chorus with piano accompaniment composed on 24 July 1844 in Marseille. Liszt had arrived in Marseille the day before and met with choristers of a German travelling company, who requested an original chorus piece of the composer. The poet Joseph Autran, whom Liszt had visited, offered him the poem Les Aquilons. In the afternoon of the 24th, Liszt composed the piece. The work was performed on 6 August at Liszt’s fourth concert in Marseille. The accompaniment was on two pianos, one played by Liszt himself.

Liebesträume

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Liebestraum No. 3#

Liebestraum No. 3 in A major is the most familiar of the three nocturnes and is in three sections, each divided by a fast cadenza requiring dexterous fingerwork and a high degree of technical ability. One melody is used throughout, and varied, notably near the middle of the nocturne, at a climax, where it is played in a series of octaves and then rendered in arpeggios. A sample from the opening bars, follows: : \header tagline = ##f tempoMark = \once \override Score.RehearsalMark #‘self-alignment-X = #-1 \once \override Score.RehearsalMark #‘break-align-symbols = #’(time-signature key-signature) \once \override Staff.TimeSignature #‘break-align-anchor-alignment = #-1 \mark \markup \bold “Poco Allegro, con affetto.” global = \tempoMark \key as \major \time 6/4 \partial 4 \parallelMusic #’(voiceA voiceB voiceC voiceD) % Anacrusis r4 s4 ees4 r4 % Bar 1 r8 ees ( aes c aes ees) r ees ( aes c aes ees) c2. s aes,4 s s c'2. s4 r r r2. % Bar 2 r8 e ( bes’ c bes e, ) r e ( bes’ c bes e, ) c2. ( c2 ) s4 s2. s2 c4 g4 r r r2. right = \global > left = \global > \score \new PianoStaff > \layout \midi \context \Score tempoWholesPerMinute = #(ly:make-moment 100 4)

Marguerite and Armand

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Plot#

Marguerite Gautier, a Parisian courtesan, lies on her deathbed, gravely ill with tuberculosis. In her delirium she recalls her love affair with a young man named Armand, which the ballet portrays using many dreamlike flashback sequences. In the first flashback, Marguerite, wearing a red dress, is surrounded by admirers and suitors. She lets them flirt with her, but feels no real emotions. Armand enters and falls for Marguerite immediately, and she returns his feelings. At the end of this sequence, Marguerite tests Armand’s love by throwing a white flower to the ground as her wealthy protector leads her away. Another suitor goes to pick up the flower, but when Armand moves to take it, the other man lets him. This symbolizes Marguerite and Armand as a couple. Marguerite, now increasingly ill, deserts her wealthy protector to live in the countryside with Armand. However, Armand’s father asks her to quit her lover; she agrees, but will not tell Armand why she must leave him. A despairing Marguerite is about to leave the country house when Armand enters, and becomes distressed upon seeing her so distraught. A passionate sequence follows, portraying the characters’ love, Marguerite’s sacrifice and Armand’s confusion. Armand, angered by Marguerite’s lack of an explanation, publicly humiliates her by tearing the necklace given to her by her wealthy protector from her neck and throwing it to the floor, and throwing money in her face. In the final scenes, sad and alone, Marguerite waits for inevitable death. However, Armand’s father has revealed the truth to him and Armand makes it back to the apartment to hold Marguerite one last time. She dies in his arms.

Mayerling (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

Prologue: The cemetery at Heiligenkreuz before dawn

Act I#

Scene 1: The ballroom at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna A ball to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and Princess Stephanie of Belgium is in full swing. Rudolf flirts shamelessly with Stephanie’s sister, Princess Louise, offending both his new bride and his parents, Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elisabeth. Rudolf meets Countess Marie Larisch, a former mistress, and Baroness Vetsera. The Baroness introduces her 17-year-old daughter Mary Vetsera. Four Hungarian officers, friends of Rudolf, enter and forcefully argue the separatist cause of their country. Countess Larisch tries to rekindle her relationship with Rudolf. The pair are discovered by the Emperor, who demands that Rudolf return to his wife. Scene 2: The Empress’s apartments at the Hofburg Having retired from the ball, Empress Elisabeth is being attended by her ladies-in-waiting. Rudolf visits his mother, on his way to his new bride. He expresses his deep unhappiness at being pressured into marriage. Desperate for maternal affection he tries to embrace the Empress, only to be coldly rebuffed. Scene 3: Rudolf’s apartments at the Hofburg Princess Stephanie is getting ready for her wedding night. Rudolf enters and threatens Stephanie with a revolver before taking her forcibly.

Mazeppa (symphonic poem)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

At the age of fifteen (1826), Liszt published twelve piano pieces titled Étude en 48 exercises dans les tons majeur et mineurs. In 1838, he revisited these compositions and republished the collection with a new title, 24 Grandes études. Seven years later (1840), Liszt reworked the fourth étude and titled it Mazeppa. This reimagined étude was reworked to express the elements of Victor Hugo’s poem from the 1829 collection Les Orientales. Mazeppa was reworked for a final time in 1851 and the new version was given the title Transcendental Étude No. 4. The final version of the piano étude led to the orchestrated symphonic poem Mazeppa.

Mephisto Polka

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dedication#

The Mephisto Polka was dedicated to Lina Schmalhausen, one of Liszt’s “inner-circle” piano students. However, she is remembered more as one among the closest and most ardently devoted of Liszt’s followers, frequently attending to and assisting in the many needs of the aged master whose health was in rapid decline.

Form#

This work appears the simplest and technically least challenging of all the Mephisto dances; except for the Bagatelle sans tonalité, it is also the shortest. Tonally, it is also mildest and can appear to be a fully tonal composition, with chromaticism limited to neighboring-tone and chordal sonority varieties. These passages are usually realized on the left hand in chordal or arpeggiated figures. However, the simplicity in notation disguises the true character of the music. There is no functional harmony to clearly create the relational behavior of tonic, dominant, and subdominant harmonic functions. If anything, the general impression of the music is modal, with the piece constantly in flux. Any suggested tonality is quickly undermined by the following sonority, which may in turn vaguely (and now even more weakly) suggest another tonal focus. The most haunting touch is at the end, when the piece simply stops without explanation, with a solitary F natural above middle C sounding, then dying out.

Mephisto Waltzes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

No. 1, S.514#

The most popular of the series and, along with the third Waltz, most praised musically, the (“The Dance in the Village Inn: First Mephisto-Waltz”), or the First Mephisto Waltz, is the second of two short works he wrote for orchestra under the title Zwei Episoden aus Lenaus Faust. While the work preceding it, Midnight Procession (), is rarely given (though both works have been recorded together), the waltz has been a concert favorite, with its passion, sensuality and dramatics generating an emotional impact. James Huneker described the work’s “langourous syncopated melody” as “one of the most voluptuous episodes outside of the Tristan score”. The first Mephisto Waltz is a typical example of program music, taking for its program an episode from Nikolaus Lenau’s 1836 verse drama (not from Goethe’s Faust). The following program note, which Liszt took from Lenau, appears in the printed score: There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad, abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song. Liszt intended to publish the Waltz simultaneously with the Night Procession: “…The publication of the two Lenau’s Faust episodes… I entrust to Schuberth’s own judgement; as to whether the piano version or the score appears first, makes no difference to me; the only important thing is that both pieces should appear simultaneously, the Night Procession as No.1 and the Mephisto Waltz as No.2. There is naturally no thematic relationship between the two pieces; but they are related nonetheless by all the contrasts of emotions. A Mephisto of this kind may only arise from such a poodle!…” Liszt’s request was not fulfilled and the two episodes were published separately. The waltz was conceived as both an orchestra and a piano work. Three versions, orchestral (S.110/2), piano duet (S.599/2) and piano solo, (S.514), all date more or less from the same period (1859–62). The piano duet version is a straightforward transcription of the orchestral version, while the solo piano version is an independent composition. Liszt dedicated the piece to Karl Tausig, his favourite pupil. A further two piano version, published by Schuberth in 1885, was arranged by Dr. Fritz Stade and later revised by Isidor Philipp. The orchestral version also has an alternate, softer ending which, while not as rousing as the usual coda, some critics argue is closer to the intent of Lenau’s tale. While this ending is not often heard in the concert hall, both Fritz Reiner and James Conlon have recorded it. Liszt also provided two extra passages for the piano solo version. It is not known when Liszt wrote these extra passages, but it was a habit of his later years to make alterations while teaching his works to his pupils.

Musical works of Franz Liszt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Transcriptions#

Liszt’s piano works are usually divided into two classes. On the one hand, there are original works, and on the other hand there are transcriptions, arrangements, paraphrases or fantasies of works by other composers. Examples of the first class are Harmonies poétiques et religieuses of May 1833 and the Piano Sonata B minor. Examples of the second class are Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert songs, his fantasies on operatic melodies, and his piano arrangements of symphonies by Berlioz and Beethoven. As a special case, Liszt also made piano arrangements of his own instrumental and vocal works. Examples of this kind are the arrangement of the second movement “Gretchen” of his Faust Symphony and the first “Mephisto Waltz” as well as the “Liebesträume” and the two volumes of his “Buch der Lieder”. Liszt’s composing of music from existing music, being taken as such, was nothing new. For several centuries many of the most prominent composers, among them J. S. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, had done it before him. An example from Liszt’s time is Schumann. He composed his Paganini Studies, Opp. 3 and 10. The subject of his Impromptus, Op. 5, is a melody by Clara Wieck, and that of the Études symphoniques, Op. 13, is a melody by the father of Ernestine von Fricken, Schumann’s first fiancée. The slow movements of Schumann’s piano sonatas Opp. 11 and 22 are paraphrases of own early songs. For the finale of his Op. 22 sonata, Schumann took melodies by Clara Wieck again. His last compositions, written at the sanatorium at Endenich, were piano accompaniments for violin Caprices by Paganini. Although Liszt’s arrangements had precedents, he was still subject to criticism. A review in the Leipziger Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of Liszt’s concerts in St. Petersburg in spring of 1843 may be taken as a characteristic example. After Liszt had in highest terms been praised regarding the impression he had made when playing his fantasies, it was to be read: :To an artist of such talents we must put the claims, being with right enforced on him by the world, at a higher level than that which until now has been reached by him – why is he only moving in properties of others? why does he not give creations of himself, more lasting than those fugitive reminiscences of a prevailing taste are and can be? … An artist of that greatness must not pay homage to the prevailing taste of a time, but stand above it!! Also Liszt’s mistresses Marie d’Agoult and Princess Wittgenstein wished him to be a “proper” composer with an œuvre of original pieces. Liszt himself, as it seems, shared their opinion. For many times he assured, his fantasies and transcriptions were only worthless trash. He would as soon as possible start composing his true masterworks. While he actually composed such works, his symphonies after Dante and Faust as well as his Piano Sonata are examples for it, he kept making fantasies and transcriptions until the end of his life. There is no doubt that it was an easier task for Liszt to make fantasies and transcriptions than composing large scale original works. It was this reason for which Princess Wittgenstein frequently called him “fainéant” (“lazy-bones”). But, nevertheless, Liszt invested a particular kind of creativity. Instead of just overtaking original melodies and harmonies, he ameliorated them. In case of his fantasies and transcriptions in Italian style, there was a problem which was by Wagner addressed as “Klappern im Geschirr der Perioden”. Composers such as Bellini and Donizetti knew that certain forms, usually periods of eight measures, were to be filled with music. Occasionally, while the first half of a period was composed with inspiration, the second half was added with mechanical routine. Liszt corrected this by modifying the melody, the bass and – in cases – the harmonies. Many of Liszt’s results were remarkable. The Sonnambula-fantasy for example, a concert piece full of charming melodies, could certainly not have been composed either by Bellini or by Liszt alone. Outstanding examples are also the Rigoletto-Paraphrase and the Faust-Waltz. The most delicate harmonies in parts of those pieces were not invented by Verdi and Gounod, but by Liszt. Hans von Bülow admitted that Liszt’s transcription of his Dante Sonnet “Tanto gentile” was much more refined than the original he himself had composed. Notwithstanding such qualities, during the first half of the 20th century nearly all of Liszt’s fantasies and transcriptions disappeared from the usually played repertoire. Some hints for an explanation can be found in Béla Bartók’s essay “Die Musik Liszts und das Publikum von heute” of 1911. Bartók started with the statement, it was most astonishing that a considerable, not to say an overwhelming part of the musicians of his time could not make friends with Liszt’s music. While nearly nobody dared to put critical words against Wagner or Brahms, it was common use to call Liszt’s works trivial and boring. Searching for possible reasons, Bartók wrote: :During his youth he Liszt imitated the bad habits of the musical dandies of that time – he “rewrote and ameliorated”, turned masterworks, which even a Franz Liszt was not allowed to touch, into compositions for the purpose of showing brilliance. He let himself getting influenced by the more vulgar melodic style of Berlioz, by the sentimentalism of Chopin, and even more by the conventional patterns of the Italian style. Traces of those patterns come to light everywhere in his works, and it is exactly this which gives a colouring of the trivial to them. Following Bartók’s lines, in Liszt’s Piano Sonata the “Andante sostenuto” in F-sharp minor was “of course” banal, the second subject “Cantando espressivo” in D major was sentimentalism, and the “Grandioso” theme was empty pomp. Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major was in most parts only empty brilliance and in other parts salon music. The Hungarian Rhapsodies were to be rejected because of the triviality of their melodies. It is obvious that Bartók himself did not like much of Liszt’s piano works. Taking his point of view, the agreeable part was very small. All fantasies and transcriptions on Italian subjects were, of course, to be neglected. But traces of conventional patterns of the Italian style can also be found in works by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as treated by Liszt. Examples are Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni and songs like Beethoven’s “Adelaïde” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. Liszt’s works on French subjects, among them his fantasies on Meyerbeer’s operas, were to be suspected to be as vulgar as the style of Berlioz. Everything reminding of Chopin’s sentimentalism was as well to be put aside. After this, of Liszt’s huge transcriptions oeuvre not much more remained than his arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies, his transcriptions of organ works by Bach, and a selection of his Wagner transcriptions. As characteristic for tendencies of the early 20th century, there were not only stylistic objections against Liszt’s fantasies and transcriptions. Fantasies and transcriptions were in general considered as worthless and not suiting for a “severe” concert repertoire. An example which shows it is the edition of the Elsa-Reger-Stiftung" of Max Reger’s “complete” piano works. All of Reger’s transcriptions of songs by Brahms, Wolf, Richard Strauss and others as well as his arrangements of Bach’s organ works were excluded. Liszt’s posthumous fate was of similar kind. In 1911, when Bartók wrote his essay, a complete edition of the “Franz Liszt Stiftung” was in print. Of the series projected to include Liszt’s fantasies and transcriptions only three volumes were published. They were a first volume with his Wagner transcriptions, and two further volumes with his arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies. All the rest of Liszt’s piano works on works by other composers, i.e. several hundreds of pieces, were excluded.

Nuages gris

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Departing from his earlier virtuoso style, Liszt in his later years made several radical, compositional experiments, including Nuages gris, Unstern (S.208) and Bagatelle sans tonalité (S.216). Yet it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the significance of Liszt’s late experimental works began to be appreciated. R. Larry Todd, for example, has noted that “Arguably, Liszt was the first composer to establish the augmented triad as a truly independent sonority, to consider its implications for modern dissonance treatment and to ponder its meaning for the future course of tonality. Liszt’s accomplishments in these areas were considerable and support in no small way his position, in Busoni’s phrase, as the ‘master of freedom.’” Scholars such as Humphrey Searle, Zoltán Harsányi, Bence Szabolcsi, Lajos Bárdos, and István Szelényi have contributed much to placing these works in the repertoire of today’s pianists. Nuages gris is quite short and technically simple. According to Jim Samson, “the most distinctive features of Liszt’s late style are present in this short work—the avoidance of a conventional cadential structure, the importance of semitonal movement, the use of the augmented triad as the central harmonic unit and of parallelism as a principal means of progression.” The harmonies are based on augmented triads while the melody line makes extensive reference to the Hungarian minor scale. The harmonies, which are very different from those found in his earlier works, give a very dark and almost morbid feel to the piece. Leonard Ratner has commented: Claude Debussy probably had Nuages gris in mind when he composed his own Nuages. Mauricio Kagel used Nuages gris in his Unguis incarnatus est (1972). in 1986, Heinz Holliger worked the piece out into Zwei Liszt-Transkriptionen for orchestra (together with Unstern!). A shocking scene at the morgue in Stanley Kubrick’s last film Eyes Wide Shut is accompanied by Nuages gris.

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text#

O lieb’, solang du lieben kannst! O lieb’, solang du lieben magst! Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt, Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst! Und sorge, daß dein Herze glüht Und Liebe hegt und Liebe trägt, Solang ihm noch ein ander Herz In Liebe warm entgegenschlägt! Und wer dir seine Brust erschließt, O tu ihm, was du kannst, zulieb’! Und mach’ ihm jede Stunde froh, Und mach ihm keine Stunde trüb! Und hüte deine Zunge wohl, Bald ist ein böses Wort gesagt! O Gott, es war nicht bös gemeint, – Der andre aber geht und klagt. O lieb’, solang du lieben kannst! O lieb’, solang du lieben magst! Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt, Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst! Dann kniest du nieder an der Gruft Und birgst die Augen, trüb und naß, – Sie sehn den andern nimmermehr – Ins lange, feuchte Kirchhofsgras. Und sprichst: O schau’ auf mich herab, Der hier an deinem Grabe weint! Vergib, daß ich gekränkt dich hab’! O Gott, es war nicht bös gemeint! Er aber sieht und hört dich nicht, Kommt nicht, daß du ihn froh umfängst; Der Mund, der oft dich küßte, spricht Nie wieder: Ich vergab dir längst! Er tat’s, vergab dir lange schon, Doch manche heiße Träne fiel Um dich und um dein herbes Wort – Doch still – er ruht, er ist am Ziel! O lieb’, solang du lieben kannst! O lieb’, solang du lieben magst! Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt, Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst! O love, as long as love you can, O love, as long as love you may, The time will come, the time will come When you will stand at the grave and mourn! Be sure that your heart burns, And holds and keeps love As long as another heart beats warmly With its love for you And if someone his soul to you Love him back as best you can Give his every hour joy, Let him pass none in sorrow! And guard your words with care, Lest harm flow from your lips! Dear God, I meant no harm, But the loved one recoils and mourns. O love, love as long as you can! O love, love as long as you may! The time will come, the time will come, When you will stand at the grave and mourn. You will kneel alongside the grave And your eyes will be sorrowful and moist, – Never will you see the beloved again – Only the churchyard’s tall, wet grass. You will say: Look at me from below, I who mourn here alongside your grave! Forgive my slights! Dear God, I meant no harm! Yet the beloved does not see or hear you, He lies beyond your comfort; The lips you kissed so often speak Not again: I forgave you long ago! Indeed, he did forgive you, But tears he would freely shed, Over you and on your unthinking word – Quiet now! – he rests, he has passed. O love, love as long as you can! O love, love as long as you may! The time will come, the time will come, When you will stand at the grave and mourn.

Orpheus (Liszt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Program#

Orpheus is one of four symphonic poems Liszt composed as character sketches of men of creative genius, heroism or legend. (The other three poems are Tasso, Prometheus and Mazeppa.) In his preface Liszt describes an Etruscan vase depicting Orpheus, then extols civilizing effect on humanity. This reference to the ennobling effect of Orpheus and his art may have been derived from the Orpheus depicted by the French philosopher Pierre-Simon Ballanche in Orphée in 1829. By introducing civilised laws, the Orpheus of this nine-volume work leads humanity into the modern age; this was intended by Ballanche to provide a new philosophy for all of Europe. Liszt was an acquaintance and supporter of Ballanche, and Liszt’s enthusiasm was shared by members of the French salons during the 1830s, especially by George Sand.

Piano Concerto No. 1 (Liszt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The main themes of Liszt’s first piano concerto are written in a sketchbook dated 1830, when Liszt was nineteen years old. He seems to have completed the work in 1849, yet made further adjustments in 1853. It was first performed at Weimar in 1855, with the composer at the piano and Hector Berlioz conducting. Liszt made yet more changes before publication in 1856. Béla Bartók described it as “the first perfect realisation of cyclic sonata form, with common themes being treated on the variation principle”.

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Liszt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The concerto is scored for solo piano, three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets in A, two bassoons, two horns in E, two trumpets in E, three trombones (two tenor, one bass), tuba, timpani in D and A, cymbals and strings.

Form#

This concerto is one single, long movement, divided into six sections that are connected by transformations of several themes: *Adagio sostenuto assai *:The key musical idea of this concerto is first heard in the first clarinet, accompanied by no more than four other woodwinds: a sequence of two chords—an A major chord with a C on top, then a dominant seventh on F. One note connects the two chords—an A. :: *Allegro agitato assai *:This is technically the scherzo of the piece. It starts in B minor and ends in C minor. *Allegro moderato *:The opening theme is played by solo cello while accompanied by the piano, showing the influence of Italian bel canto on Liszt’s work. *Allegro deciso *Marziale un poco meno allegro *:Yet another transformation of the gentle opening theme, this section has also nearly always been attacked as vulgar and a betrayal of both the initial character of this theme and the concerto on the whole. American musicologist Robert Winter disagreed. He called the march “a masterstroke that demonstrates the full emotional range of thematic transformation.” The march contains the force and weight needed to reestablish the home key of A major, from which the music has been moving quite far since the concerto opened. *Allegro animato

Piano Concerto No. 3 (Liszt)

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Rediscovery#

It was virtually unknown until 1989. It was identified and assembled from multiple sources by Jay Rosenblatt, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. Parts of the score were located in Weimar, Nuremberg and Leningrad, and, to the extent they were known at all, it had been assumed they were early drafts of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, also in E major. Liszt made no mention of this third concerto in his writings, so the existence of the piece was unknown to researchers. When Liszt died, his housekeeper let his pupils go through the house and take away manuscripts as mementos. These were not always complete scores. The Nuremberg sheet came from Max Erdmannsdörfer, who came into contact with Liszt while he was kapellmeister at Sondershausen. In 1882 he became kapellmeister in Moscow. It is possible that he had the whole score and that part of it eventually found its way to the Leningrad library after his death.

Piano Sonata in B minor (Liszt)

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History#

Liszt noted on the sonata’s manuscript that it was completed on 2 February 1853, but he had composed an earlier version by 1849. At this point in his life, Liszt’s career as a traveling virtuoso had almost entirely subsided, as Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein had influenced him to concentrate on composing rather than performing. Liszt settled in Weimar in 1848 where he devoted himself to composition, and to living a comfortable lifestyle, composing, and occasionally performing, entirely by choice rather than necessity. The Sonata was dedicated to Robert Schumann, in return for Schumann’s dedication of his Fantasie in C major, Op. 17 (published 1839) to Liszt. A copy of the work arrived at Schumann’s house in May 1854, after he had entered Endenich sanatorium. Pianist and composer Clara Schumann did not perform the Sonata despite her marriage to Robert Schumann; according to scholar Alan Walker she found it “merely a blind noise”.

Prometheus (Liszt)

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Composition#

In 1850, Franz Liszt composed an overture and eight choruses with orchestra accompaniment for Johann Gottfried Herder’s Der entfesselte Prometheus (Prometheus Unbound), a mythological work of thirteen scenes meant as a sequel to Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. This was to be performed for the Herder Festival scheduled for August of that year in Weimar. Liszt gave indications for the orchestration, and from these notes Liszt’s helper Joachim Raff produced a score which was used in the first performance. This concert commemorated the unveiling of a monument to Herder on 24 August 1850. In 1855 Liszt revised both the overture and the choruses, added new instruments, mainly woodwinds, which resulted in the expansion of the overture to a symphonic poem and the choruses to a concert stage work. The symphonic poem was first performed on 18 October 1855.

Réminiscences de Don Juan

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Description#

The piece begins with music sung by the Commendatore, both from the graveyard scene where he threatens Don Giovanni (“Di rider finirai pria dell’aurora! Ribaldo audace! Lascia a’ morti la pace!” — “Your laughter will not last, even till morning. Leave the dead in peace!”) and from the finale where he condemns Don Giovanni to Hell. The love duet of Don Giovanni and Zerlina follows (“Là ci darem la mano”), along with two variations on this theme, then an extended fantasy on the Champagne aria (“Fin ch’han dal vino”), and finally the work concludes with the Commendatore’s threat. In contrast to perhaps the majority of opera fantasies composed during the nineteenth century, Liszt’s Don Giovanni paraphrase is a much more tightly controlled and significant work. Where the standard opera transcription is merely a collection of famous tunes, The finest of Liszt’s opera fantasies…are much more than that: they juxtapose different parts of the opera in ways that bring out a new significance, while the original dramatic sense of the individual number and its place within the opera is never out of sight.

Rondeau fantastique sur un thème espagnol

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Sardanapalo

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Background#

Liszt first mentions his desire to compose a large-scale opera in October 1841. Alongside his interest in the genre’s capacity for realizing literary narratives in music, he was motivated, in part, by the prospect of being recognised as more than a travelling keyboard virtuoso; with Rossini’s stature in mind, a major opera offered Liszt a way of entering “the musical guild”. (His early one-act opera, Don Sanche, composed aged 13, closed after four performances at the Paris Opéra, and could hardly qualify to raise his status.) Among the range of opera subjects he considered, he initially settled on an opera based on Byron’s The Corsair, and even obtained a libretto by Alexandre Dumas in 1844, but nothing came of this. Towards the end of 1845 he settled on the subject of Byron’s tragedy Sardanapalus (1821). At this time Liszt had been appointed at the court in Weimar, but had not yet taken up residence. He briefly considered a possible opportunity at the Hoftheater, Vienna, where the Kapellmeister, Gaetano Donizetti, was seriously ill (he would die in 1848). A large-scale Italian opera could have placed him in the running for Donizetti’s influential post, as he wrote in an 1846 letter to the Comtesse d’Agoult. Yet he told her only a few months later that, given the conduct of the people involved, “that post will do me no good” and was no longer a consideration. In correspondence with his close associate the Princess Belgiojoso, Liszt first planned to have the opera performed at La Scala, Milan, in 1846–47, later switching the venue to the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna (1847), and finally to “Paris or London” (1852). Sardanapalus was, according to the writer Ctesias, the last king of Assyria. Some have identified him with Assurbanipal, but the Sardanapalus of Ctesias, “an effeminate debauchee, sunk in luxury and sloth, who at the last was driven to take up arms, and, after a prolonged but ineffectual resistance, avoided capture by suicide” is not an identifiable historical character. Ctesias’s tale (the original is lost) was preserved by Diodorus Siculus, and it is on this account that Byron based his play. Liszt had been present at the second performance in 1830 of the oratorio The Death of Sardanapalus by Hector Berlioz, which featured an immolation scene, in preparation for which a “sacrifice of the innocents” took place, as famously depicted in Eugène Delacroix’s sensational 1828 painting of the subject (illustration). These influences may have stoked Liszt’s interest in the tale’s potential for operatic treatment. With reference to the inferno that ends Byron’s play, he tells Belgiojoso that finale will “aim to set the entire audience alight”. By 1849, when he at last began to write the music, he conceived the idea of further altering the libretto by adding an orgy scene, perhaps after Delacroix, but this was turned down by Belgiojoso.

Symphonic poems (Liszt)

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Background#

According to cultural historian Hannu Salmi, classical music began to gain public prominence in Western Europe in the latter 18th century through the establishment of concerts by musical societies in cities such as Leipzig and the subsequent press coverage of these events. This was a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, according to music critic and historian Harold C. Schonberg, which brought changes to the early 19th-century lifestyles of the working masses. The lower and middle classes began to take an interest in the arts, which previously had been enjoyed mostly by the clergy and aristocracy. In the 1830s, concert halls were few, and orchestras served mainly in the production of operas—symphonic works were considered far lower in importance. However, the European music scene underwent a transformation in the 1840s. As the role of religion diminished, Salmi asserts, 19th-century culture remained a religious one and the attendance of the arts in historical or similarly impressive surroundings “may still have generated a rapture akin to experiencing the sacred.” Schonberg, cultural historian Peter Cay and musicologist Alan Walker add that, while aristocrats still held private musical events, public concerts grew as institutions for the middle class, which was growing prosperous and could now afford to attend. As interest burgeoned, these concerts were performed at a rapidly increasing number of venues. Programs often ran over three hours, “even if the content was thin: two or more symphonies, two overtures, vocal and instrumental numbers, duets, a concerto.” Roughly half of the presented music was vocal in nature. Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn or Ludwig van Beethoven usually opened or concluded concerts, and “while these works were revered as models of great music, they were ultimately less popular than the arias and scenes from operas and oratorios that stood prominently in the middle of these concerts.” Meanwhile, the future of the symphony genre was coming into doubt. Musicologist Mark Evan Bonds writes, “Even symphonies by such well-known composers of the early 19th century as Méhul, Rossini, Cherubini, Hérold, Czerny, Clementi, Weber and Moscheles were perceived in their own time as standing in the symphonic shadow of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or some combination of the three.” While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and 30s, “there was a growing sense that these works were aesthetically far inferior to Beethoven’s…. The real question was not so much whether symphonies could still be written, but whether the genre could continue to flourish and grow as it had over the previous half-century in the hands of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. On this count, there were varying degrees of skepticism but virtually no real optimism.” The crux of the issue, Bonds asserts, “was never really one of style … but rather of generic conception.” Regardless, composers increasingly turned to the “more compact form” of the concert overture “as a vehicle within which to blend musical, narrative and pictoral ideas”; examples included Mendelssohn’s overtures A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826) and The Hebrides (1830). “Lisztomania” swept across Europe, the emotional charge of his recitals making them “more like séances than serious musical events”, and the reaction of many of his listeners could be characterized as hysterical. Musicologist Alan Walker says, “Liszt was a natural phenomenon, and people were swayed by him…. With his mesmeric personality and long mane of flowing hair, he created a striking stage presence. And there were many witnesses to testify that his playing did indeed raise the mood of an audience to a level of mystical ecstasy.” He settled in Weimar, where he had been made its honorary music director in 1842, to work on his compositions. Weimar was a small town that held many attractions for Liszt. Two of Germany’s greatest men of letters, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, had both lived there. As one of the cultural centers of Germany, Weimar boasted a theater and an orchestra plus its own painters, poets and scientists. The University of Jena was also nearby. Most importantly, the town’s patroness was the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. “This triple alliance of court, theater and academia was difficult to resist.” The town also received its first railway line in 1848, which gave Liszt relatively quick access from there to the rest of Germany.

Tasso: lamento e trionfo

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Composition#

Liszt’s first sketch for this work is dated August 1, 1849. He had heard the principal theme for Tasso in Venice, Italy several years earlier, however, using it in the 1840 version of his piano piece “Chant du Gondolier” in Venezia e Napoli. Liszt completed the 1849 version of Tasso as an overture in two sections, giving it to August Conradi to orchestrate. This version was performed in Weimar, Germany on the centennial of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s birth as an overture to his drama Torquato Tasso. Liszt later corrected Conradi’s score and had Joachim Raff produce a new score in 1850–51. Liszt then revised this score extensively, adding a central section. This version was performed on April 19, 1854 in Weimar, conducted by Liszt.

Three Concert Études

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Étude No. 1, Il lamento#

Il lamento is the first of the études. Written in A major, it is among Liszt’s longest pieces in the genre. It starts with a four-note lyrical melody which folds itself through the work, followed by a chromatic pattern which reappears again in the coda. Although the piece opens and ends in A major, it shifts throughout its three parts to many other keys, A, G, D, F and B among them.

Today, Tomorrow and Forever (Elvis Presley song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recording#

Elvis Presley recorded the song in two versions, as a duet with Ann-Margret and as a solo. Only the solo recording was used in the film and issued on the accompanying soundtrack EP. A duet version can be heard on the 2002 Elvis Presley compilation album Elvis: Today, Tomorrow, and Forever, offering a selection of rarities from his whole career. The solo version also appeared on an RCA Camden compilation of Presley’s movie songs titled C’mon Everybody (1971). According to the Elvis Presley official website, both the solo and the duet versions were recorded for the motion picture Viva Las Vegas on July 11, 1963, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood and featured Billy Strange, Scotty Moore and Tiny Timbrell on guitar, Bob Moore on bass, D.J. Fontana, Buddy Harman and Frank Carlson on drums, Floyd Cramer and Dudley Brooks on piano, Calvin Jackson on organ, Boots Randolph on saxophone, and the Jordanaires on vocals.

Totentanz (Liszt)

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Obsession with death#

Some of the titles of Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre gondola and Pensée des morts, show the composer’s fascination with death. In the young Liszt we can already observe manifestations of his obsession with death, with religion, and with heaven and hell. According to Alan Walker, Liszt frequented Parisian “hospitals, gambling casinos and asylums” in the early 1830s, and he even went down into prison dungeons in order to see those condemned to die.

Transcendental Étude No. 10 (Liszt)

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Transcendental Étude No. 11 (Liszt)

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Innovations#

Experiments in tonal ambiguity and ‘impressionistic’ sonorities mark this as a forward-looking work.

Origin#

“Harmonies du soir” was rooted from the seventh of the Études S.136, which was a study in alternating hands. The similarities in melody are apparent.

Content#

The piece begins with an introduction containing slow broken octaves in the left hand and chords in the right hand. After a group of arpeggios, the main theme is introduced in the left hand, a beautiful descent followed by a chromatic ascent with harmonies changing with each note. It is accompanied in the right hand by bass notes (crossing over) and octaves which seem to “sing along” with the left hand. Eventually, after a buildup with large chords in the right hand and octaves deep in the bass in the left hand, this theme is played again this time with harp like arpeggios in both hands. The piece continues in this manner for a while until the second theme, a chordal section marked Poco più mosso is introduced. It begins pianississimo but then grows to an appassionato climax. The music then seems to fade out, followed by an entire new section of the piece, marked Più lento con intimo sentimento. This section’s song like melody is accompanied by arpeggiation in both hands (bringing out the main melody is a surprising technical feat, due to the wide spacing of the arpeggios in each hand). After a recitative passage, the music goes somewhere unexpected. The second theme is brought back, this time fortissimo and marked trionfante with chords in both hands. The most technically difficult part of the entire piece consists of multiple pages of chordal jumps and repetition, requiring a large amount of stamina. The music eventually dies down, and after an arpeggiated variation of the first theme, the music dies out.

Transcendental Étude No. 4 (Liszt)

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Form#

This étude features distinct sections, separated by progressions in double octaves. After a short ad libitum cadenza, the main theme is presented in octaves accompanied by thirds in the center of the keyboard, giving the impression of a horse galloping in a cloud of dust. The theme returns immediately this time with a thinner texture. After a chromatic scale in alternating octaves arrives, the middle section “Lo stesso tempo” occurs in which the left hand plays a modified version of the theme while the right hand plays arpeggios in intervals up and down the keyboard. An “Il canto espressivo ed appassionato assai” () immediately follows in which the main theme reappears, this time accompanied by repeated thirds in both hands in addition to a chromatic scale in the left. The original theme makes a more recognizable return in the “Animato” (more animated). Yet the horse returns galloping faster than he has ever before, as illustrated in the “Allegro deciso,” where a variation of the original theme is played at a much quicker tempo. Finally, a grandiose finale represents Liszt’s interpretation of the last verse of the poem: “il tombe enfin, et se relève roi!” ().

Transcendental Études

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History#

The genesis of the Transcendental Études goes back to 1826, when 15-year-old Liszt wrote a set of youthful exercises called the Étude en douze exercices (Study in twelve exercises), S.136. These pieces were not particularly technically demanding. Liszt then returned to these pieces for thematic ideas, elaborating on them considerably, in the composition of the Douze Grandes Études (Twelve Grand Studies), S.137, which were published in 1840. The Transcendental Études, S.139, are revisions of the Douze Grandes Études. The fourth was altered and published alone as Mazeppa in late 1846, and the collection as a whole was published in 1852 and dedicated to Carl Czerny, Liszt’s piano teacher, and himself a prolific composer of études. Liszt made numerous textual changes in the final revision of the set, adapting the technical demands to facilitate execution on pianos with heavier keyboard action. When revising the 1837 set of études into their final “Transcendental” versions, Liszt added programmatic titles in French and German to all but two of the pieces, Liszt’s original idea was to write 24 études, one in each of the 24 major and minor keys. He completed only half of this project, Lyapunov’s set of études was dedicated to the memory of Liszt, and bore titles as Liszt’s set had done, with the final étude being entitled Élégie en mémoire de Franz Liszt. Very few pianists have recorded the 1837 set, and even fewer have recorded the 1826 set (which really are works of Liszt’s juvenilia). Leslie Howard is the only pianist to have recorded all three sets on a major label for international release, as part of his series of recordings for Hyperion of the complete solo piano music of Liszt.

Transcriptions by Franz Liszt

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Alexander Alyabyev#

Note: The Mazurka pour piano composée par un amateur de St. Pétersbourg, paraphrasée par F. L. (S.384) was based on a mazurka that has often been misattributed to Alyabyev, but was in fact written by Mikhail Vielgorsky.

Mikhail Vielgorsky#

Note: Vielgorski is also seen as Count Michael Wielhorski.

Index of S. numbers#

S.54: Giuseppe Baini
S.116: Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
S.120: Hector Berlioz
S.122: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.126b/2: Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg
S.127: Frédéric Chopin
S.128: Charles Philippe Lafont
S.140, 141: Niccolò Paganini
S.147: Anton Diabelli
S.149: Gioachino Rossini
S.150: Gioachino Rossini, Gaspare Spontini
S.155/3: Franz Schubert
S.156/10: Ferdinand Huber
S.156/11: Ernest Knop
S. 156/12, 156a/1: Ferdinand Huber
S.156a/3: Ernest Knop
S.159: Guillaume-Louis Cottrau
S.161/3: Giovanni Bononcini (misattrib. Salvator Rosa)
S.162: Guillaume-Louis Cottrau
S.162/2: Gioachino Rossini
S.168: Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia
S.172/4: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia
S.179, 180: Johann Sebastian Bach
S.181: George Frideric Handel
S.183: Jacques Arcadelt, Pierre-Louis Dietsch
S.205, 206: Mihály Mosonyi
S.207a: Alexander Borodin
S.208a/2: Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg
S.234: Josef Krov
S.236/2: René de Galard de Béarn, Marquis de Brassac
S.237: Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
S.241/1: László Fáy
S.241/2: János Bihari
S.244/19: Kornél Ábrányi
S.245: Kornél Ábrányi
S.246: Ludmilla Gizycka-Zámoyská
S.249/2: Frédéric Chopin
S.250/1: Alexander Alyabyev
S.250/2: Pyotr Bulakhov
S.252: Manuel García
S.256: Alexander Borodin
S.257: Felix Mendelssohn
S.259: Giacomo Meyerbeer
S.351: Hans von Bülow
S.352: Peter Cornelius
S.353: Béni Egressy, Ferenc Erkel
S.360: Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.363: Franz Schubert
S.364: Juliusz Zarębski
S.367, 367a: Carl Maria von Weber
S.368: Francis Korbay
S.375, 376: Franz Schubert
S.377: Géza Zichy
S.379b: Ludmilla Gizycka-Zámoyská
S.380: Richard Wagner
S.383a: Kornél Ábrányi
S.384: Alexander Alyabyev (misattrib.), Mikhail Vielgorsky
S.385, 385a, 386, 387: Daniel Auber
S.388, 389: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.390–394: Vincenzo Bellini
S.395, 396: Hector Berlioz
S.397–400, 400a, 401, 402: Gaetano Donizetti
S.403: Giuseppe Donizetti
S.404: Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
S.405: Ferenc Erkel
S.405a: Leó Festetics
S.406: Mikhail Glinka
S.407, 408, 409: Charles Gounod
S.409a: Fromental Halévy
S.410: Felix Mendelssohn
S.411: Saverio Mercadante
S.412–416: Giacomo Meyerbeer
S.417: Mihály Mosonyi
S.418: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.419: Giovanni Pacini
S.420: Niccolò Paganini
S.421: Joachim Raff
S.422–424: Gioachino Rossini
S.425–427: Franz Schubert
S.428: Mariano Soriano
S.429: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
S.430: János Végh
S.431, 431a, 432–438: Giuseppe Verdi
S.439–450: Richard Wagner
S.451–455: Carl Maria von Weber
S.456: Géza Zichy
S.458: Saverio Mercadante
S.461: Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.462, 463: Johann Sebastian Bach
S.464–469: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.470–475: Hector Berlioz
S.476, 477, 477a: Louise Bertin
S.478: Pyotr Bulakhov
S.479: Hans von Bülow
S.480: Frédéric Chopin
S.481: August Conradi
S.482: César Cui
S.483: Alexander Dargomyzhsky
S.483bis: Ferdinand David
S.484, 484/19bis: Ferdinand David
S.485: Josef Dessauer
S.485a: Felix Draeseke
S.485b: Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
S.486: Béni Egressy, Ferenc Erkel
S.487: Leó Festetics
S.488, 489: Robert Franz
S.490: Adalbert von Goldschmidt
S.491: Charles Gounod
S.492: Johann von Herbeck
S.493: Johann Nepomuk Hummel
S.494–497: Eduard Lassen
S.498: Otto Lessmann
S.506b: Giuseppe Baini
S.522: Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
S.547, 548: Felix Mendelssohn
S.549: Giacomo Meyerbeer
S.550: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.551: F. Pezzini
S.551a: Joachim Raff
S,552, 553: Gioachino Rossini
S.554, 554a: Anton Rubinstein
S.555: Camille Saint-Saëns
S.557–562: Franz Schubert
S.563: Franz Schubert, August Heinrich von Weyrauch
S.564, 565: Franz Schubert
S.566–568, 569/1–7: Robert Schumann
S.569/8–10: Clara Schumann
S.570: Robert Schumann
S.570a: Bedřich Smetana
S.571: Louis Spohr
S.571a: Johann Strauss II, Karl Tausig
S.572: Jules Massenet, Imre Széchényi
S.574–576, 576a: Carl Maria von Weber
S.577: Mikhail Vielgorsky
S.577a: John Field
S.607: Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
S.620: Josef Krov
S.623a: Kornél Ábrányi
S.624: Giacomo Meyerbeer
S.627: Vincenzo Bellini
S.628: Hector Berlioz
S.628a: Béni Egressy, Ferenc Erkel
S.629: Mikhail Glinka
S.630: Giacomo Meyerbeer
S.631: Joachim Raff
S.632: Franz Schubert
S.633: Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.634: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.634a: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.649: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.654, 655: Vincenzo Bellini
S.656: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.657a: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.658: Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.659: Jacques Arcadelt, Pierre-Louis Dietsch
S.660, 661: Johann Sebastian Bach
S.662: Frédéric Chopin
S.663: Orlande de Lassus
S.669c: Giuseppe Baini
S.673: Johann Sebastian Bach
S.675: Otto Nicolai
S.675a: Alexander Ritter
S.675c: Giuseppe Verdi
S.676: Richard Wagner
S.679: Gioachino Rossini
S.682: Gioachino Rossini
S.683a: Francis Korbay
S.684: Luigi Pantaleoni
S.685: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia
S.686: Felix Draeseke
S.694: Thomas Arne
S.697: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.698: Léo Delibes
S.700, 700a: Niccolò Paganini
S.700h: Charles Philippe Lafont
S.739, 740: Ludwig van Beethoven
S.741: Hector Berlioz
S.742: Gaetano Donizetti
S.743: Charles Gounod
S.743a: Fromental Halévy
S.744: Gaetano Donizetti
S.748: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
S.750, 751: Gioachino Rossini
S.752: Anton Rubinstein
S.753: Franz Schubert
S.754: Pier Adolfo Tirindelli
S.755a: Thomas Arne
S.761: Frédéric Chopin

Sources#

Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954, Vol. V, pp. 264–316, Franz Liszt: Catalogue of Works

Two Concert Études (Liszt)

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Details#

“Waldesrauschen”, in D major, is the first of the two pieces in this set. It is known for its beauty and imitation of wind in the forest. “Gnomenreigen” is in F minor. It is known for its technical difficulty in its fast and soft passages, where the pianist imitates the sound of gnomes. It first has a theme in F minor consisting of grace notes followed by eights. Then it goes to a fast, playful theme in A major. It repeats themes, and also has a theme with repeating bass notes, such as the fifty-four consecutive low Ds. Finally, the A major theme is repeated for a climactic part of the étude, this time in F major.

Vaterländischer Künstlerverein

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In 1819, the Viennese publishing house of Cappi & Diabelli invited a number of Austrian composers to contribute one variation each for the piano, on a theme written by Anton Diabelli himself, one of the principals of the firm. Diabelli’s theme is usually described as a waltz, but in form it has more of the character of a Ländler. and Diabelli had joined with Anton Spina and renamed the firm Diabelli & Co. Part II was published in late 1823 or early 1824 by Diabelli & Co., and includes the other 50 variations and Czerny’s coda. It is also not known how many composers were approached, but 51 responded to the invitation. Some well-known names such as Ignaz von Seyfried and Joseph Weigl do not appear. Whether they were not interested in participating or whether they were not even approached is not known. Apart from Beethoven’s 33 variations, 48 of the other 50 composers wrote only the one variation they were asked for. Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart and Gottfried Rieger wrote two variations each, but only one from each of them was originally published.

Via crucis (Liszt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Setting#

The work follows the fourteen stations:

Sources#

Franz Liszt, Via Crucis. Die 14 Stationen des Kreuzwegs (1878/79), Ausgewählte Werke vokaler Kirchenmusik, Heft 3, by Thomas Kohlhase, Partitur mit Einleitung, Carus 40.173, s.a., s.l. (Tübingen, 1977).

Weihnachtsbaum (Liszt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Liszt dedicated Weihnachtsbaum to his first grandchild Daniela von Bülow (1860-1940; daughter of Cosima and Hans von Bülow). Daniela had accompanied her grandfather to Rome due to his frail condition. The first performance was on Christmas Day 1881 in Daniela’s Rome hotel room. This was the day on which her mother Cosima always celebrated her birthday, although she was actually born on Christmas Eve.

Structure#

A number of the pieces are based on Christmas carols. The individual pieces are: #Psallite; Altes Weihnachtslied (Psallite; Old Christmas Song; originally a choral work by Michael Praetorius) #O heilige Nacht!; Weihnachtslied nach einer alten Weise (O Holy Night!; Christmas Song in Olden Style) #In dulci jubilo: Die Hirten an der Krippe (In dulci jubilo: The Shepherds at the Manger) #Adeste fideles: Gleichsam als Marsch der heiligen drei Könige (Adeste Fideles: March of the Three Holy Kings) #Scherzoso: Man zündet die Kerzen des Baumes an (Scherzoso: Lighting the Candles on the Tree) #Glockenspiel (Carillon) #Schlummerlied (Slumber Song) #Altes provenzalisches Weihnachtslied (Old Provençal Christmas Song) #Abendglocken (Evening Bells) #Ehemals (variously trans. as In Days Gone By, Old Times, Long Ago, Formerly) #Ungarisch (Hungarian; this is separately dedicated to Liszt’s friend Kornél Ábrányi ) #Polnisch (Polish). The work is divided into three books of four pieces each. Not all of the pieces have a Christmas connection. In particular, the last three are believed to be autobiographical in nature, depicting Liszt’s relationship with Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. Ehemals is said to depict their first meeting, and is similar in mood and spirit to the Valses oubliées. Ungarisch and Polnisch are said to represent Liszt and Carolyne individually.

Franz Liszt on Music Theory Print

Années de pèlerinage

Album d’un voyageur, S.156#

Première année: Suisse#

Au bord d'une source

Analysis#

Bagatelle sans tonalité

Program#

Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne

Christus (Liszt)

Composing#

Concerto pathétique

History and significance#

Consolations (Liszt)

Title#

Csárdás (Liszt)

Csárdás macabre, S.224 (1881–82)#

Dante Sonata

Background#

Dante Symphony

Composition#

Deux Légendes

No. 1: St. Francis of Assisi’s sermon to the birds#

Don Sanche

Composition#

Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam"

Form#

Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni

Manuscript#

Faust Symphony

Structure#

Funérailles

Composition#

Glanes de Woronince

External links#

Grandes Études de Paganini

Étude#

Grandes études de Paganini#

See also#

Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

Structure#

Héroïde funèbre (Liszt)

Background#

Hungarian Fantasy (Liszt)

Bibliography#

Hungarian Rhapsodies

Form#

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Background#

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6

Form#

Hunnenschlacht (Liszt)

Structure#

La campanella

Background#

Music#

La lugubre gondola

History#

Late works of Franz Liszt

Economy of means#

Les Préludes

Genesis#

Les Quatre Élémens

Genesis#

Liebesträume

Liebestraum No. 3#

Marguerite and Armand

Plot#

Mayerling (ballet)

Synopsis#

Act I#

Mazeppa (symphonic poem)

History#

Mephisto Polka

Dedication#

Form#

Mephisto Waltzes

No. 1, S.514#

Musical works of Franz Liszt

Transcriptions#