Liszt

The Artistry of Ferruccio Busoni: Historic Recordings from 1922

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Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), who died 100 years ago last July, was a musical renaissance man. The Italian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, writer, and editor has been called “the first truly modern composer.” He is also remembered for numerous enduring transcriptions of the music of J.S. Bach. Busoni associated with such a disparate group of contemporaries as Schoenberg, Sibelius, and Edgard Varèse. His small circle of students included Kurt Weill. The pianist Alfred …

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Liszt’s “La Chapelle de Guillaume Tell” from “Années de Pèlerinage”: Horn Calls and Heroism

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During the 1830s, Franz Liszt embraced the romantic life of the medieval Troubadours. While in a relationship with the Countess Marie d’Agoult, Liszt wandered throughout the countryside of Switzerland and Italy, where he visited “places consecrated by history and poetry,” and found the “phenomena of nature” to be deeply stirring. These travels formed the inspiration for Années de pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”), a three-volume cycle of 26 pieces for solo piano. The …

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Schumann’s “Widmung”: A Love Song Adapted by Liszt

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In September of 1840, Robert Schumann presented a collection of 26 songs, composed the previous spring, to his beloved Clara as a wedding gift. The cycle, Myrthen, Op. 25, contains intimate musical ciphers and codes which had personal meaning to the couple. Myrtle flowers, referenced in the title, are associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Based on a poem by Friedrich Rückert, the opening song, Widmung (“Dedication”), begins with the lines, …

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Remembering André Watts

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André Watts, the celebrated American pianist, has passed away following a battle with prostate cancer. He was 77. At the age of 16, Watts made his national debut, performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as part of a nationally televised Young People’s Concert. Soon after, Bernstein invited Watts to perform on one of the orchestra’s subscription programs, where he substituted for an …

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Liszt’s Csárdás Macabre: Alfred Brendel

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Among Franz Liszt’s final works for solo piano is the Csárdás macabre, composed in 1881. The piece is a ghoulish joyride, filled with convention-defying parallel fifths and intimations of the Dies irae. Its innovative harmonies anticipate the twentieth century music of Béla Bartók and others. Above the title on the manuscript, Liszt inscribed the words, “May one write or listen to such a thing?” The csárdás is a Hungarian folk dance in 2/4 or 4/4 …

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Liszt’s “Vallée d’Obermann”: Vivid Encounters with Nature

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Obermann, an 1804 novel by the French philosopher, Étienne de Senancour, centers around the mediations of a young, melancholy recluse who retreats into the Swiss Alps to probe profound and unsettling questions. The novel unfolds as a series of letters written by Obermann, the ultimate solitary, Romantic hero. Filled with longing, he is both enthralled and mystified by Nature. He asks, What do I wish? What am I? What shall I ask of nature? I …

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Liszt’s “Les Préludes”: The Birth of the Symphonic Poem

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At the dawn of the Romantic period, a dramatic new type of concert piece emerged that was infused with extramusical associations. This programmatic music, usually inspired by literary themes, crystalized with the thirteen symphonic poems (or tone poems) of Franz Liszt. Filled with passion, turbulence, pathos, and heroic exultation, this free-form music probed new psychological depths. Liszt’s Les Préludes, composed between 1849 and 1855, was the first piece to be called a “symphonic poem.” …

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