A piece on Franz Liszt which I wrote in first year of college for a music class. Naturally, I've changed it a bit to make it less academic, and in turn, less boring!
Franz Liszt is, quite possibly the most awe-inspiring pianist of all time. He was, indeed, the greatest of all nineteenth century pianists and his intense skill remains unrivalled. He was a genius at piano, composition and performance. His compositions are unique, bewildering and inspiring. His skills were so unique that they expanded far beyond the ordinary skill of nineteenth century compositions. He was far ahead of his time, and a prodigy. To this day, Liszt’s work is almost impossible for the modern pianist to perform. However, when it is performed, the performer will get an enormous response, which shows how popular Liszt’s work still is today.
Liszt was born in 1811 in Raiding, Hungary, and was the kind of kid we like to call "child prodigy". At the age of six, his father, Adam Liszt, gave him piano lessons. When he was nine, he held recitals in several Hungarian cities and got a very positive response. So, in 1821, he went to Vienna, after numerous very generous, Hungarian aristocrats raised the money to send him there. He studied there for eighteen months with Karl Czerny, who took over as his piano teacher, and Antonio Salieri, who taught him the art of composition. Czerny said about Liszt: “Never before had I seen so eager, talented, or industrious a student.” (Gerig, Reginald R., Famous Pianists and their Techniques, London: David and Charles LTD, Newton Abbot, 1976, p.105).
When Liszt gave his second recital in Vienna, the wonderful, the almighty, the
hero that was Ludwig Van Beethoven attended the concert, and actually embraced Liszt after his amazing performance. This was in 1822 when Liszt was still only a boy! In March 1824, he played and incredible performance in Paris, which caused him to become “the favoured child of Parisian nobility and high society.” (Ewen, David, Orchestral Music, Mainstreams of Music Volume Two, New York, 1973, p.102.) Later that year, he performed in London and got an equally positive response - he was even invited to play for the king. At this stage he was still no more than a child.
Over the next two years, Liszt decided he wanted to give up his music career to study literature, philosophy and religion. However, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (an unbelievable symphony) inspired him and made him consider the possibilities of Romanticism in music. This was one of the reasons he decided to stick with music. He now wanted to become the greatest piano virtuoso in the world - and he succeeded. Berlioz was not the only composer to have great influence over Liszt. In 1831, he met not only Berlioz, but other musical genius's such as Chopin and Paganini. All three of these were to have a lasting influence over him. After meeting Berlioz, he wrote a complete piano arrangement of Symphonie Fantastique, which he finished in 1833. Paganini’s twenty-four Caprices inspired him to write his own Transcendental Etudes. Chopin’s incredible pianistic style inspired Liszt’s own style. By 1832 he had mastered all of Beethoven’s Sonatas and got a very positive response in his concerts. However, when he played these sonatas, he never said in his programs that it was Beethoven’s work, as Beethoven was considered to be quite dull at the time - yes, this blasphemy shocked me too!
“…it was unheard of for a pianist, a violinist, a singer, to give a concert entirely on his own, unaided by other musicians. That was not to come until Liszt.” (Schoenberg, Harold C., The Great Pianists, London: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1965, p.31). Indeed, Liszt was the first musician to play full programs by himself, without the accompaniment of other musicians. He was also the first musician to play from memory. He always got a rapturous response at each of his concerts, and critics and other musicians were extremely impressed by his amazing pianistic skills. In 1835, Henry Reeves attended a recital in Paris and had this comment about Liszt’s performance: “As the closing strains began I saw Liszt’s countenance assume that agony of expression, mingled with radiant smiles of joy, which I never saw in any other human face except in the paintings of Our Saviour by some of the early masters; his hands rushed over the keys, the floor on which I sat shook like a wire, and the whole audience was wrapped with sound, when the hand and frame of the artist gave way. He fainted in the arms of the friend who was turning over the pages for him, and we bore him out in a strong fit of hysterics.” (Gerig, Reginald R., Famous Pianists and their Techniques, London: David and Charles LTD, Newton Abbot, 1976, pp.171-172). This proves how important expression of emotion and feeling was in his work. Liszt put so much effort into this performance that he actually had to be carried off-stage - pretty emotional!
After a performance in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1842, a critic, Stassov said: “Liszt mounted the platform, and pulling his doeskin gloves from his shapely white hands, tossed them carelessly on the floor. Then, after acknowledging the thunderous applause,
such that had not been heard in Russia for over a century, he seated himself at the piano. There was a silence as though the whole hall had been turned to stone, and Liszt, without any prelude, began the opening bars of the overture to William Tell. Curiosity, Speculation, criticism, all were forgotten in the wonderful enchantment of his performance.” (Ibid. p178. My italics).
In 1848, he became the music director of Weimer, where he put on performances of orchestral and opera music. He also, selflessly, promoted the work of new composers. He made Weimer become one of the most progressive music centres in Europe.
He made very important contributions to orchestral literature. For example, although he didn’t invent the rhapsody - it was, in fact a Bohemian composer who invented it (it can be assumed that this is where Queen got the name for the amazing hit, 'Bohemian Rhapsody') - he did make it popular. He was the first composer to demonstrate it’s significance in orchestral music. The rhapsody was “a structure fluid and free in design in which popular melodies could be treated in a rhapsodic manner, with slow and sensuous passages alternating with fiery dramatic ones to create a theatrical effect.” (Ewen, David, Orchestral Music, Mainstreams of Music Volume Two, New York, 1973, p. 103). He wrote twenty Rhapsodies for the piano - all made up of Hungarian tunes. His most celebrated rhapsody is his second in C-sharp minor. Like all his rhapsodies, it has continuous changes in mood, which holds the interest of the listener. Liszt also made the symphonic poem popular, but again, he did not invent it.
Liszt wrote two symphonies, using a series of symphonic poems. He also wrote two concertos and in 1859 he wrote a fantasy for the piano, called Totentanz (dance of death). He also wrote two short orchestral pieces, the most famous being Mephisto Waltz. Liszt’s works were very elaborate and stormy and difficult to play. Some of Liszt’s amazing works include Concert/Sonata in B minor, which is filled with expression. It determines the class of a Liszt player:
“Liszt, moreover, enables a pianist’s manual capacity, his finger technique, his hands, his strength, his temperament, to be discerned with great clarity. When someone has played Liszt’s B minor sonata, confusion, at least about the interpreter’s pianistic equipment, can hardly exist anymore.” (Kaiser, Joachim, Great Pianists of Our Time, trans David Woolbridge and George Unwin, London: George Allen & Unwin LTD, 1791, p.65).
Liszt’s Nineteenth Rhapsody for Piano is filled with tempo and virtuosity of the utmost complication, a pianist needs extreme skill to master this piece. Liebenstraum Nochturne is “a piece of masculine, nobly sensitive music.” (Ibid. p.179) and Totentanz was “a piece of sinister brilliance.” (Ibid. p.67).
Reminiscences de Don Juan is merely an example of the pianistic intelligence in Liszt’s work. The finger work in this piece is extremely complicated. It could almost be considered impossible - like most of his work. Reminiscences de Don Juan is still played today at concerts, and is still recorded by pianists. However, it is more often recorded than performed - again, due to it’s intense complications in finger work. “It is a piano fantasy in which the sparks fly. The tasteless and brilliant are evenly balanced.” (Ibid. p.97).
When he was older, he, selflessly, thought piano to a few gifted students. His students thought very highly of him. Liszt once said this to one of his students: “I had been playing piano for years and had concertized with great public acclaim. I thought I was marvellous. Then one day I realised that I failed to express feelings and Emotions which oppressed me, I decided to make a thorough analysis of myself. This proved to me that I did not know how to play a trill properly and that neither my octaves nor certain aspects of my chord playing were satisfactory. I set to work and soon my whole approach was radically changed.” (Gerig, Reginald R., Famous Pianists and their Tchniques, London: David and Charles LTD, Newton Abbot, 1976, p.183).
One of his best students was Eugene d’Albert, also known as “the little giant”. “In the generation following any great pianist, a myth arises. The pupils of Liszt and Leschetitzky, for example, spent years preaching and writing about their teachers. With each year, the figures of those two great men became taller and wider, with lightening playing around them. It has been no easy task to put them, and others, into true perspective.” (Schoenberg, Harold C., The Great Pianists, London: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1965, p. 13). However, Liszt’s works speak for themselves, and leave no doubt in our minds that Liszt was, indeed, an amazing musician - a figure of pure brilliance in the history of music.
After a life of dedicated, incredible work, he got pneumonia at a Wagner festival (no, not the guy from X Factor last year!!) in Bayreuth in 1886. It was fatal and he died on July 31, 1886. “Thus the last music Liszt was destined to hear was Wagner’s, and that is probably the way he would have wanted it to be, could he have chosen.” (Ewen, David, Orchestral Music, Mainstreams of Music Volume Two, New York, 1973, pp.105-106).
Liszt’s work was so amazing that it almost seems impossible that such a brilliant man could ever exist in the world of music. However, in every area, there is at least one figure who sticks out in history, and in musical history, that figure is, most definitely, Franz Liszt. His works for the piano are still popular today. His contributions to orchestral literature are still widely appreciated. Liszt was an inspirational man, in his time. He impressed and inspired musicians all over the world, and he still inspires musicians all over the world today.
12 Oct 2011
by Jessica Thompson
