The csárdás is a traditional Hungarian folk dance, the name of which derives from the Hungarian word for tavern. The beginnings of the dance can be traced back to the 18th century in Hungary and was used as a recruiting device for the Hungarian army. The Romani people (formerly called gypsies) popularized the dance in Hungary and neighboring countries. It is a dance that is varied in tempo, from slow to fast. Liszt made wide use of the csárdás in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, as did other composers. But it is Liszt who used it most often in his compositions, no doubt because of his Hungarian heritage.
The Csárdás Macabre was composed towards the end of Liszt's life, a time in which he suffered health problems both physical and mental. The music he composed in his last years saw a change in style from his earlier music. Gone is the brilliant virtuosity, glitter and complexity. His music became leaner in texture, and tonally ambiguous.
Csárdás Macabre begins with an introduction that is in ostensibly in D minor , but has no sharps or flats in the key signature (Dorian mode?) .This segues into the first theme that is in parallel fifths and that revolves around the fifth of F-sharp and C-sharp in chromatic fashion. The key signature changes to one flat (D minor officially?), rambles on, and the key signature once again changes to no sharps or flats as the transition to the second theme begins. The key signature changes again to one flat (F major) as the second theme begins. The second theme runs into a section marked dolce amoroso (sweetly and tenderly) that leads into a development section where both themes are varied. There is a recapitulation of the two themes after which there is another development section. The piece winds up with a coda that ends up in D major, again ostensibly.
The tonal scheme of this piece can be bewildering. D minor, F, G-flat, D, E-flat, and add some ancient modes to the mix. No wonder it took so long for late pieces such as this to get performed. Wagner himself thought that Liszt's mind was deteriorating with age.
Liszt's late music is brimming with things foreign to even the most forward-thinking composers of his time. Polytonality, atonality, the use of exotic scales, bitonality and other methods and techniques make Liszt one of the most innovative composers in the history of Western music.
In 1847 Liszt gave up his life as a traveling piano virtuoso and devoted himself to musical composition. He had been made honorary music director at the court of Wiemar in 1842, and after his retirement he moved there. He composed all but one of his symphonic poems in Wiemar from 1848-1858.
As music director, Liszt was also conductor of the court orchestra. He helped to expose the music of Berlioz, Wagner, and many other composers to a wider audience during his years in Wiemar. He also played many of his own orchestral works there. Liszt came to orchestral composition relatively late in his life and having an orchestra at his disposal aided him greatly in fine-tuning his compositions. He admitted that he needed to hear his works before he could finalize them.
His symphonic poems are based on the orchestral overture, which in turn was a development of the operatic overture. While operatic overtures were usually a panache of tunes from the opera about to be heard, the symphonic overture was similar to symphonic movements, and were written in sonata form. Liszt used a different form and was a pioneer of cyclic form where musical motifs are played, varied and repeated. These motifs don't always follow a pattern of repetition. They can enter and leave in no set fashion and can be varied in many ways throughout the composition. Some of the symphonic poems show the seams and sound episodic, some meld into a seamless 'poem', but it is well to remember that these compositions were experiments in sound and form. As such, they inspired many other composers such as Wagner, who used the idea to create his leitmotifs in his operas.
Hunnenschlacht by Wilhelm von Kaulbach
Some of the symphonic poems were inspired by works of art. Hunnenschlacht was inspired by a painting of the same title by Wilhelm von Kaulbach. The painting depicts the battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451 AD where Attila The Hun led his army in an invasion of Gaul against a coalition of Roman and Visigoth generals and their soldiers. Contemporary descriptions of the battle contributed to the legend of the ferocity of the battle. The 6th century philosopher Damascius heard that the fighting was so severe "that no one survived except only the leaders on either side and a few followers: but the ghosts of those who fell continued the struggle for three whole days and nights as violently as if they had been alive; the clash of their arms was clearly audible" It was this description of the battle that is depicted in the painting by Kaulbach.
Liszt opens the piece with the beginning of the battle, with Liszt giving the directions: "the entire tone color
should be kept very dark, and all instruments must sound like ghosts". To help achieve the effect he wanted, Liszt also directs the strings to play with mutes, even in the loud sections. The battle lasts for roughly the first half of the work. The second half is begun with the solo organ playing Crux Fidelis, (Faithful Cross) an ancient church chant. This represents the victory of the Christian forces and slowly leads to a triumphant ending, with the solo organ having the last word.
The quoting of the ancient church hymn and the added organ (the oldest keyboard instrument known and a fixture in the Catholic church) is used by Liszt to avow his life-long faith in the Catholic church. The triumphant ending can also be looked at in the broader sense as a representation of love conquering hate.
The complex personality and genius of Liszt make him a paradox. From womanizer (by reputation or fact) to taking minor orders in the Catholic church, from brazen virtuoso to thoughtful musician, from indulging in the writing of what would be the equivalent of banal 'pop' music today to composing some of the best pieces of music by any composer. There is no denying that his was a great musical mind capable of exploring and experimenting in music. As his former fiance and lover Countess Sayn-Wittgenstein said of him, "'Liszt has thrown his spear further into the future than Wagner." The influence of Liszt in music history is only now being known.
The series of 13 tone poems Liszt wrote were inspired in content by his readings in classical literature, biography, mythology and history. Liszt made up for a lack of formal education in his younger years because of his constant piano practice and concertizing by reading voraciously.
In musical structure, he was inspired by Beethoven's repeating thematic material in separate movements and the unity this gave the work as a whole. Hector Berlioz's work Symphony Fantastique was also an influence. Liszt liked the work so much that he helped to promote the work by making a piano transcription of it.
The tone poem is a direct descendant of the operatic and concert overture. As operatic overtures signaled a beginning of an opera and often quoted the main themes that were to be heard, the concert overture was usually written in sonata form and could be a singular piece of music that began a dramatic play, or the music could have a descriptive setting. Liszt took these qualities, plus the feeling of the first movement in a symphony (usually written in sonata form and many times was the movement that held the most musical weight). He took the idea of thematic unity further than Beethoven, and used what is called cyclic form, where the entire piece has common themes repeated, sometimes verbatim, sometimes varied. Like many other 'new' things, Liszt did not invent cyclic form so much as revive it for there is examples of it in Renaissance music. There are also examples of it in Haydn's music, and of course Beethoven made use of it.
In the preface to the score of Orpheus Liszt wrote:
“I saw in my mind’s eye an Etruscan vase in the Louvre, representing the first poet-musician. I thought to see round about him wild beasts listening in ravishment: man’s brutal instincts quelled to silence.... Humanity today, as formerly and always, preserves in its breast instincts of ferocity, brutality and sensuality, which it is the mission of art to soften, sweeten and ennoble.”
Orpheus is written in a loose sonata form. The piece begins with two harps playing ascending passages in imitation of Orpheus' lyre.The piece is restrained and contemplative, Liszt's tribute to the depth of feeling and redeeming qualities he heard and saw in music and art in general.
Liszt wrote most of his tone poems while he was kappelmeister in Wiemar in 1852-1854. Most of them are not in the immediate concert repertoire except for Les Preludes. They were experiments in form, structure, orchestration and material. Some are more satisfying musically than others, but all of them are at the least interesting. That more of them are not heard in the concert hall may say something about the tone poems, but it surely says something about the state of the modern day concert hall.
Prometheus is an ancient Greek myth that had its first telling as early as the 8th century BC. In short, the myth of Prometheus tells of him being a Titan that had not only created man from clay, but stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man. As punishment, Prometheus is chained to a rock where every day an eagle comes and eats his liver. His liver grows back every day, and the eagle returns every day to consume it once again.
Liszt's original work was written for the celebration of the 100th birthday of the poet/philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. It consisted of an overture and eight choruses with orchestral accompaniment and used Herder's Prometheus Unbound, a work in 13 scenes. This work was written in 1850, a time when Liszt was yet able to orchestrate his works himself. With instructions on instrumentation from Liszt, it was left to Joachim Raff to complete the work, but the score was incomprehensible to many due to Liszt's use of dissonance, plus the choruses were not well integrated in the work. Liszt later orchestrated the work himself in 1855 and turned the overture into a tone poem and the choruses into a work for the concert stage.
Prometheus begins with harsh, dissonant chords from the orchestra that represent the harsh sentence given to Prometheus for his crimes. Sadness is contained within the ensuing music, a lament for the fallen Titan.
This almost key less introduction leads to the passionate first theme which represents Prometheus' struggle and suffering. The second theme arrives via the cellos and represents hope, in spite of Prometheus' suffering. Then a fugue begins that is strictly worked out and possibly represents a struggle against adversity. At the end of the fugue, the lament begins again and the two opening themes are heard again. After the recapitulation of the two opening themes there is a coda consisting of the fugue tune and the theme of hope that combine into an ending of triumph.
It is well to remember that Liszt's music was heralded as the 'new music' of its time and thus garnered its share of negativity, such as the review of Prometheus from a music periodical of 1860:
Liszt's artistic intentions seem to be disembodied and only infrequently do they condense melodic, rhythmic, and self-contained creations. Their main strength predominantly lies in orchestral color, while the melodic line is barely indicated, indeed, must often be guessed at. The manifold, rhapsodic nature of the form, the rhythmic freedom the composer has brought forth in many parts of this work, and the hasty modulatory change make understanding all the more difficult.
Many of Liszt's tone poems still meet with rather limited popularity. Some of them are quite experimental in nature considering the time they were written in, and Liszt can on occasion be rightfully accused with over-writing a composition. But he also stretched the limits of sonata form as with tone poems like Prometheus and wrote other compositions that may have seemed rhapsodic to detractors years ago, but are actually well-thought out and well structured compositions.
The full title of Liszt's work is A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy. Liszt began sketching themes for this work as early as 1840. He worked on fragments of it until he laid it aside. In 1855 he took up the work again and completed almost all of it by the end of 1856. Liszt played the piano version of the work to Wagner, who praised it but suggested some changes.
Liszt had originally conceived the work in three movements, Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Wagner talked Liszt out of writing a symphonic work that portrayed paradise, as he thought no composer could do paradise justice. Liszt agreed, and retained the first two movements and added a Magnificat in place of the Paradise movement. The first performance was held in Dresden in 1857 with Liszt conducting, and it was a disaster. Lack of rehearsal was the cause, but Liszt didn't give up on the work and conducted it again in 1858.
The work has not been one of Liszt's most popular. It is an innovative work, as most of Liszt's compositions, and makes use of different forms, musical scales and harmonies. Along with his Faust Symphony(finished in 1854) these two works are more like groups of related tone poems than symphonies, at least in structure. The Faust Symphony to me is a more balanced work, the three sections having much more in common with each other in material and length. The Dante Symphony's strongest movement to me is the first one, Inferno. The second movement is also very good, but the very short Magnificat that follows it tends to throw the last two thirds of the work out of balance to my ear. That doesn't mean the Magnificat isn't good, it most certainly is and is very innovative in Liszt's use of the whole tone scale. Perhaps if Liszt had kept to his original plan for a Paradise movement the work many have been even better.
Inferno begins with a depiction of the gates of hell itself with a slow introduction for brass. Liszt repeats the motif 4 times, each time slightly varied and the first three lines and the ninth line written on the gates of hell are written over the notes in the score:
Through me is the way to the sorrowful city, Through me is the way to eternal sorrow, Through me is the way among the lost people. Abandon all hope you who enter here.
There is a chant recited by the trumpets and horns, the tempo quickens and the music makes a rapid descent that depicts Dante and Virgil descending into hell. As Dante goes through the circles of hell, the music evolves into waves of noise, violence and borderline hysteria, probably one reason why this work is none too popular; Liszt's depiction of hell gets pretty noisy in places. After the second circle of hell, Liszt takers part of a previously heard motif and relates the story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo, two lovers that were contemporaries of Dante, who wrote their story into his Divine Comedy. The pair were murdered by Francesca's husband (who was also Paolo's brother) before they could repent of their sin, thus they are doomed to hell for eternity, clutching each other in their misery. Francesca tells Dante the tale before they are swept along the torrents of hell with the other lost souls, and Dante faints. Liszt's music depicts the heartache and passion of the story in music that is in vivid contrast to what has gone before.
After what amounts to the lengthy interlude of the telling of the story of Francesca da Rimini, Dante and Virgil resume their journey and the music returns to the inquietude of the beginning. Snatches of music that has been heard before return, in a twisted recapitulation of the beginning. It isn't until these are heard that we realize Liszt has used his own version of sonata form for this movement. The music picks up momentum as it hurtles through the circles of hell until the final horrible vision of Satan himself is seen chewing on the bodies of the damned. The music builds into a loud, shrill climax, then with five chords the bottom falls out and the music ends.
I first hear this symphony more than thirty years ago, and Inferno has been one of my favorite pieces ever since, and it made me a ‘fan’ of Liszt. It was my introduction to Liszt besides the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 I heard Bugs Bunny play in the old cartoons. The power of the piece, the sheer visceral reaction from the loudness of the beginning and end coupled with the tenderness of the middle Francesca da Rimini section still sends chills up the back of my neck. And I do admit that it is the Inferno movement I listen to the most. The other two movements seem anti-climatic to me. I do better to listen to them without the first part
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Franz Liszt was a complex man. He was a member of the musical and social avant-garde of his time, thus thought nothing of living with women and having children without being married, yet he was a very religious man of traditional Catholicism. How Liszt managed to account for his behavior within his strict religious views are a marvel. But there was always a priestly side to Liszt. Early in his life he had given serious thought to becoming a priest, only to cast aside the thought in favor of the life of a traveling piano virtuoso with everything that went with it. Liszt began drinking and smoking early in his life. No one really knows when his sexual exploits began, but if that was anything like the rest of his young life it started early too.
All of the travel, cavorting, drinking and such finally caught up with Liszt and he retired from the concert platform in 1847 at the age of 35. He had by this time left the mother of his three children, Countess Marie d'Agoult for another royal lady Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein,the wife of a Russian Prince. Both Liszt and the Princess wanted to marry, but the Princess' husband (not to mention the Pope himself) would not grant her a divorce. The two never did marry, and while Liszt remained involved with her until her death, they no longer lived together after 1863 when Liszt began living in a small apartment near Rome. When Liszt's son died in 1859 and his youngest daughter died in 1862, it had a profound affect on Liszt. He declared to his friends that he would live a solitary existence from then on. He took minor orders and was occasionally called the Abbé Liszt. From then on, he divided his time between Rome, Budapest and Wiemar and composed, taught and participated in music festivals.
It was about this same time that Liszt wrote St. Francis of Assisi Preaching To The Birds for piano. The piece was one of a pair of what Liszt called Legends. This piece hears the piano in imitation of birdsong with chains of trills and tremolos until St. Francis himself begins to preach to them and the birds that are in the trees silence their singing and listen to him and the birds on the ground walk up to the saint and circle him to listen. According to the legend, St. Francis preaches to the birds that they have much to be thankful to God for and that they should sing their praises to Him every day.
The music is one of Liszt's greatest works. Gone is the Liszt of technical fireworks and brilliant passage work. Replacing it is a Liszt that has the technique serve the musical idea with the result being a gentle, spiritual piece of musical story telling.
The pianist playing the piece in the video is Wilhelm Kempff, not the first name a music lover might think of in the music of Liszt. But Kempff plays with the gentleness and poetry this piece needs.
The symphonic poems of Franz Liszt have garnered their share of interpretation of meaning. Of course they are all a type of music written with a specific person, place or event in mind, program music. This type of music lends itself more to interpretation of meaning (and downright conjecture) than absolute music. Liszt's tenth symphonic poem Hamlet seems to have developed two main camps of interpretation of meaning. One takes it as tone painting of the actual events and people in the play, the other is more of a character sketch of Hamlet and his emotions during the action of Shakespeare's play.
As Liszt didn't leave a detailed program, the piece is certainly open to differing ideas as to its specific meaning. The works original purpose was as an overture to a dramatic production of the play, so there is no doubt musical references to events and people in the drama with a few references in the score as evidence of that. To paraphrase Liszt's thoughts on program music, he thoughts on it were explained by using the example of how a landscape could produce a mood within the viewer, and that music also could evoke a mood within the listener. As the landscape paints the mood, so can music paint the mood. So while some composers may have had a specific non-musical meaning behind their music, to me it is enough to know in general terms what the story is without a highly detailed, bar by bar analysis of which notes and phrases represent what specifically. As Liszt himself said in a letter to a friend:
"Without any reserve I completely subscribe to the rule of which you so kindly want to remind me, that those musical works which are in a general sense following a programme must take effect on imagination and emotion, independent of any programme. In other words: All beautiful music must be first rate and always satisfy the absolute rules of music which are not to be violated or prescribed"
Liszt did make some changes to the original overture and this final version was not heard for decades after his death. The work begins with the tempo indication Sehr langsam und Düster which loosely translates to Very slowly and gloomily. A horn makes the first entry with muted notes that sound unearthly. The orchestra enters after these notes and keeps with the eeriness of the music by playing softly, and the horn once again utters the stopped notes, orchestra responds as before for a few measures and then the time signature changes and the tempo indication changes to Moving, but moving very slowly. The indication Always gloomily appears occasionally throughout the first part. Tempo changes occur, Allegro appassionato, Allegro agitato, but the gloom never lifts off the orchestra completely. And as a reminder, Liszt repeats the opening tempo indications at the beginning of the ending, very slowly and gloomily with the added instruction Moderato-funebre , the death of Hamlet.
Someone once said that of all the major composers, Liszt was the one that threw his spear farthest into the future. That may be open to discussion, but Liszt did reveal the passions, terrors, loves and hatreds of humans in his music, perhaps to a degree as yet matched by any other composer. The symphonic poem is a mysterious and gloomy piece. Whether it follows the mood of the play, its specific actions, or if it 'paints' the moods and frames of mind of Hamlet, I leave to the listener.
Among the 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt are some of his most popular pieces. Rhapsody #2 is a perennial favorite, and thanks to the treatment it got in the Warner Brothers cartoon Rhapsody Rabbit, the piece was exposed to a wide audience of adults and children, albeit in a less than original form:
Most of the 19 Rhapsodies follow the general idea of what a rhapsody is in music: A piece in one movement, episodic and loose structured but still integrated as a whole piece, improvisatory in nature, with differing moods and colorations within the piece. With Liszt being one of the great piano virtuoso, his rhapsodies are not at all easy to play. With glittering piano effects, extremes of tempo and feeling, the rhapsodies have sometimes been looked down upon as empty show pieces. They most certainly are show pieces, and for the pianists that can do them justice technically and bring out their musicality, the rhapsodies need not be looked down on as inferior. They are perfect in their own right, wonderfully difficult pieces to play and a delight to listen to. In some basic ways, they are a solid representation of the Romantic era in music.
While Liszt called them 'Hungarian', he heard many of the tunes he used in the rhapsodies from gypsy bands that were not necessarily Hungarian. While Liszt thought the tunes were folk songs, many were in fact songs written by other Hungarians and the tunes were taken up by the gypsy bands who played them in their own style, a style Liszt emulated in the rhapsodies.
Liszt published the first fifteen rhapsodies in 1851-1853 but many were no doubt written long before they were published. The last four rhapsodies appeared in 1882-1886, and these final four are markedly different. With a leaner texture, different harmonies and musical ambiguities, Liszt is a precursor of things to come. The Rhapsody #17 is a good example. It is a short piece, the music lacks any brightness. Even the rapidly rolled chords in the middle of the piece that are higher on the keyboard don't ease the tension of the bare octaves and black harmonies of the piece.
Late in life Liszt suffered many physical illnesses and his mental state on occasions brought up the possibility of depression. His late music stands in stark contrast to his former style. The glitter is gone, there is a hard edge to it, almost as if Liszt were looking into the very face of death and writing music that he heard when he did. Liszt went further into the future than any other composer of his generation, including Wagner.
The 17th Rhapsody ends with the hammering of heavy chords in the bass. It doesn't really end, for there's no resolution. It just stops. Perhaps it represents Liszt in his last years, sick and dying, trying to stay active and work as long as he can with no real end, his life just stopped.
Europe at the time of Franz Liszt's early adulthood was a Europe of revolution. In July, 1830 the Paris Revolution, also known as The Three Glorious Days caused the abdication of French King Charles X and brought about the ascent of Louis-Philippe from the House Of Orleans as the new constitutional monarch.
Liszt was not yet 20 years old at the time, but the event inspired him to sketch out a Revolution Symphony in five movements. It wasn't until 20 years later when Liszt took the first movement sketch of the symphony and reworked it into a symphonic poem. Revolution spread across most countries in Europe in 1848, including Paris and Liszt's native Hungary.
March 15, 1848 was the day that a group of Hungarians rioted in Pest-Buda demanding political autonomy for Hungary from Austria. Emperor Ferdinand promised Hungary a constitution, an elected parliament, and the end of censorship. The new government, led by ministers Szechenyi and Kossuth, imposed the Magyar language on all the other nationalities in Hungary. This angered many people, and uprisings followed. Austria took back Hungary after one and a half years of fighting when Russian Tsar Nicholas I marched into Hungary with over 300,000 troops.
Hungary was placed under brutal martial law, with the Austrian government restored to its original position. Liszt's final inspiration to complete the work was to commemorate the execution in 1849 of thirteen Hungarian generals who had led the revolution, but he still left a very short musical quotation from the French national anthem La Marseillaisefrom the original work in it, perhaps as a tribute to France, his adopted country early in his adulthood.
Liszt wrote a long preface to the work when it was published that dealt with the price paid when violence is part of revolution and the consequences the use of violence has on human progress. It is as if Héroïde funèbre is a funeral oration for the victims of revolutionary violence, no matter what flag they were carrying. Some of Liszt's preface:
De Maistre remarks that over thousands of years it is hard to find any during which, by rare exception, peace reigned on earth - which otherwise resembles an arena where people fight each other as did the gladiators in former times, and where the most valiant salute Destiny as the master and Providence as their judge, before entering the lists. In these wars and carnages that succeed one another like sinister games, whatever the colors of the flags which rise courageous and proud against each other, over both camps they flutter soaked in heroic blood and inexhaustible tears.
Liszt also had this to say about dying for one's country:
I would be the first to answer the call to arms, to give my blood and not tremble before the guillotine, if it were the guillotine that could give the world peace and mankind happiness. But who believes that? We are concerned with bringing peace to the world in which the individual is justly treated by society.
The first version of this piece was published in 1850, with the music written by Liszt but orchestrated by his protege Joachim Raff (as were other of the symphonic poems), as Liszt was still learning the craft of orchestration. But the piece was thoroughly revised and re-orchestrated by Liszt himself in 1854 and 1857.
This was not the only funeral music Liszt wrote. In his set of piano pieces called Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses the seventh piece named Funérailles is dedicated to those who fell in the Hungarian uprising, perhaps the same thirteen generals who led it. And the Hungarian Rhapsody #5 in E minor is subtitled Héroïde élégiaque. The creative artist in Liszt tried to deal with the death and destruction brought on by people rising up against oppression in the best ways he knew how - he performed many concerts and gave all the proceeds to charities that helped the victims of aggression, and he gave honor and tribute to the fallen through his music.
Georges Cziffra (1921 - 1994) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist. His father was a cimbalom player that played in cafes and cabarets in the Paris area. He was a child prodigy and first learned to play the piano by watching his sister take lessons. He would learn songs by ear after his parents would whistle or sing the music to him.
By the time he was five he had attracted the attention of a traveling circus which hired him to improvise and play tunes suggested by the audience. He did this for only a few weeks, but this association with the circus caused some critics to question his musical upbringing. But Cziffra had a well-rounded musical education as he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy at the age of nine, the youngest student ever admitted in the history of the institution. He was also allowed to take part in master classes that were usually reserved for older students.
In 1942 he was called up to fight in the Second World War. His unit was sent to the Russian Front under orders of the Nazis and he was captured by Russian partisans and held captive for two years. He eventually escaped, was brought back into the military on the side of the Nazis and became a tank commander. He was went through denazification and began to play piano in cafes.
Cziffra attempted an escape from Soviet-controlled Hungary and was a prisoner doing forced labor and undergoing torture from 1950-1953. He finally left the country for a concert in Vienna on the eve of the Hungarian Revolt in 1956 and never went back to Hungary. He wore a heavy leather wristband on his right forearm to help support ligaments in his right arm that had been injured under torture during his imprisonment.
Cziffra was one of the top virtuoso pianists of the 20th century who was known for his interpretations of Liszt's music. He was not only Hungarian like Liszt, but he was also of Gypsy extraction. There was evidently no technical problems for him at the keyboard. He throws off the most difficult music with ease. Case in point is the following video of his performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #6. In the world of the Hungarian Rhapsodies that is full of technical difficulties, Number 6 stands out for the repeating octaves in the final section of the work which makes keeping tempo increasingly difficult the longer the piece goes. Cziffra throws the octaves off as easily as if he were playing single notes and seems to actually increase the tempo without losing clarity:
Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) wrote Les Préludes, his third symphonic poem in 1856. It was derived from pieces he wrote as early as 1844 for chorus and piano. although it was the third of his symphonic poems, it was the first to be heard and the first to be called a symphonic poem.
The full title of the work is Les Préludes (d'aprés Lamartine) references a poem written by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine. The first printing of the score also had a short essay printed with it, although this was not by the poet:
"What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar; and where is the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom, and when "the trumpet sounds the alarm", he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy."
There is also evidence in a letter written by Liszt that explained the work was only a prelude to his method of composing. There has been quite a lot of research done on the naming of this symphonic poem that can be read here.
Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) was the originator of the Symphonic Poem, a piece of music inspired by literature, art or other non- musical source. He wrote thirteen of these pieces using various subjects as inspiration.
Liszt's Symphonic Poem No. 6 was inspired by the legend of Ivan Mazeppa, who was born in Lithuania in 1639. He was of noble birth, and as the legend goes he had a love affair with a Polish princess who was married to a much older man. When the husband found out about the affair as punishment he had Mazeppa stripped of his clothes and tied to a horse and set free to run in the wilderness. The horse ended up in Ukraine, Mazeppa survived the ordeal, and was found by Cossasks, who eventually made him their Hetman, the person of highest military rank in the country.
Although just a legend, it inspired many Romantic era writers, painters and musicians. Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin and Victor Hugo wrote poems about it, Liszt and Tchaikovsky wrote music based on it, and there are many paintings inspired by it.
Liszt first wrote a piano piece based on the legend, part of his set of Transcendental Etudes , first published in 1837 then revised with the revisions printed in 1852. Mazeppa is the 4th Etude in the set and remains one of the most technically difficult pieces in the repertoire for piano. Liszt's orchestral version differs from the piano version as it is longer and expands on some of the musical ideas of the original.
The poem has musical representations of the ride through the wilderness, the beating of the horses hoofs, the terror of the rider and after Mazeppa is found by the Cossacks a triumphant military march.
Mazeppa by Franz Liszt, followed by a performance of the original piano piece:
Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) combined his love for literature and the other arts and music in a form of composition he called the Tone Poem, or Symphonic Poem. A Tone Poem is a one movement compositions reminiscent of concert overtures written by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and others.
Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo ( Tasso, Lament and Triumph) was inspired by the life of Torquato Tasso, an Italian poet of the 16th century. Liszt referred to two works written about the poet, one by German writer and poet Johann von Goethe and another by Lord Byron, an English poet. Tasso suffered from mental illness and spent many years in an asylum. He did eventually leave the asylum and resumed his writing, but he was never cured. It is now thought that he suffered from schizophrenia.
It was the sufferings and inner turmoil of Tasso's years spent in the asylum that Liszt depicts in music in the first half of the piece, with the triumph and release from the asylum and the resumption of his creative work that is depicted in the second half.
Liszt wrote 13 of these one movement Tone Poems, with Tasso being number two. They were all inspired by literature, art, or some other non-musical source. With this series of Tone Poems, Liszt created a new type of composition, one well suited to the Romantic era of the 19th century.
