Program Notes | October 22, 2011 | Happy Birthday, Liszt
Notes researched & written by Joan Olsson
FRANZ LISZT
1811 — 1886
200th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Hungarian Franz Liszt was raised as a child prodigy by his amateur musician father who immediately recognized his son’s musical gifts and became his first piano teacher. By age 7 the youngster had mastered the elements of piano playing, by age 8 he was composing, and by age 9 he was making concert appearances. Soon after he was sent to Vienna to study with the renowned Karl Czerny who, observing his great talent, refused payment for lessons. Antonio Salieri simultaneously provided studies in composition. At age 12 he and his family moved to Paris in order to make application to the Paris Conservatory but in keeping with the conservatory’s policy to reject foreigners they refused to accept the undeniably brilliant Hungarian youngster. The rejection mattered little; he continued his studies privately and soon became an acclaimed concert pianist and teenaged pet of Paris society.
The status eventually evolved into Liszt’s being the 19th century concert version of today’s rock superstar. His image was complete with flamboyant costumes, bejeweled sword and medaled chest, velvet gloves, facial contortions, a tossed-around mane of hair, and frequent, public love affairs. It was during his concertizing that Liszt began the concert hall tradition of turning the piano sideways, so that his admired profile would be visible to the audience (previously a pianist either faced the audience or had his back to it). By the late 1840’s the successful, wealthy Liszt had tired of his circus environment and became court music director at Weimar and composer and teacher for Albeniz, Bizet, Saint-Saens, Smetana and legions of others. In short he lived a restless, ever-changing, exciting existence that included politician, abbe (minor order of priesthood), charity concert provider, teacher, conductor and literary scholar until his death from pneumonia at age 75.
Liszt’s indecisiveness in the details of his living activities affected his artistic accomplishments; he is said to have “lacked integration,” e.g. was devoted to both women and religion, loved both Hungary and Paris, had very close friends and was extremely lonely. According to several music critics of his time and since, the composer’s music passes from moments of real eloquence to big-time drama — from intense, original and powerful creativity to diffuseness and triviality, ranging from stirring to overpowering, beguiling and poetic. His greatest contribution to music composition was that of the “tone (or symphonic) poem,” a transmutation of a poem, prose text, story, or painting into musical terms. He established the form of the “rhapsody” and also contributed to the wide use of a recurrent theme. Liszt’s technical brilliance and the impact of his piano technique affected all who followed; the modern piano virtuoso was born with him.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major 1848
This concerto is in one continuous movement but contains the subdivisions customarily reserved for a symphony; they are connected without the usual silences that exist between movements. The full orchestra immediately announces the first theme. Liszt is said to have inaudibly sung (or said), “Das versteht lhr alle nicht,” translated as “None of you understands this” to this seven-note theme. As the most important of three repeated themes, its assertive melody and cadenzas remind us that Liszt was perhaps the most physical pianist of his era. The second slow section is gentle, dreamlike and lyrical in character, first heard in muted celli and double basses before elaboration by solo piano and solo flute. The third movement is a scherzo (“joke” in Italian) with three energetic parts. Its most unusual feature is the appearance of the triangle — a revolutionary idea openly criticized by critics of the time. The melody of the slow (second) movement is transferred into a gallant march-like theme in the finale that also includes a busy cymbal. By this time the listener may have noticed that themes associated with earlier sections reappear frequently and thus create a type of unity to this one grand movement of four sections.
Hungarian Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra 1853
This fantasy on Hungarian folk themes is a piano spectacular on which an orchestra is occasionally permitted to intrude. In this work orchestra and soloist tend to alternate. When they do play together the piano still seems separate, as if in reference to the independence of the original piano-only version. The work opens in a mood of brooding melancholy, employing an authentic folk song, Mohacs Field, which refers to the location where the Hungarian army was defeated by Turkish forces in 1525. The atmosphere shifts to proud declamation and finally to sparkling high spirits. The piece is filled with regional effects — oddly placed accents of Hungarian folk songs. The melodies are authentic, native tunes; the opening lassan section sounds noticeably soulful while the faster friska brings the piece to an explosive conclusion.
Fantasy on Themes from Beethoven’s The Ruins of Athens 1811
Liszt paid tribute to Beethoven, a composer he deeply admired, through this Fantasy on Themes. He based this virtuoso showcase on the themes from one of Beethoven’s most inconsequential scores — incidental music for a play written for the opening of the German theater in the Hungarian capital of Pest. While the dignified beginning of The Ruins of Athens features beautiful woodwind songs that represent Beethoven at his most lyrical, the work also showcases the zesty energy and vivid display of the Liszt compositional and pianistic style. Prominent is a German Romantic feeling in the horn chorales near the beginning and in the heavy “swing” near the end of the work.
The Wanderer Fantasy Op. 15 1822
Teacher Czerny and composers Beethoven and Schubert profoundly influenced Liszt’s views of instrumental form. But it was Schubert whom Liszt considered the most poetic musician who ever lived, and his staggering tally of over 600 songs served as Liszt’s inspiration in rearranging The Wanderer Fantasy for piano and orchestra. He was attracted not only by the work’s wild virtuosity but also by its form. Although the four movements have their own tempo markings for each movement, the flow is, once again, a continuous structure unified by one main motive from which all themes are developed.