Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 2 In B Minor

 Henry Litolff was born in London, but by the time he was 17 he began to make his way around Europe as a pianist, conductor and composer. He composed and taught most of his life, and became friends with an assortment of who's-who of 19th century composers and musicians, among them Liszt and Berlioz. His was a busy life, as he composed much, ran a music publishing firm until 1858 (his adopted son continued to run the business after Litolff divorced his mother), traveled Europe as a soloist, and married four times!

His contribution to the piano concerto literature were 5 Concerto Symphonique, a hybrid of concerto and symphony in the writing for piano as well as orchestra. Neither entity is the sole star of these works, as the orchestra is an equal partner to the soloist. That takes nothing away from the brilliance of his writing for the piano; there is much flash and brilliance in these works for the soloist and orchestra, and Litolff must have been a virtuoso pianist, for most concertos were written by the composer to perform themselves. There are but 4 of these works in existence as the 1st is considered lost. The 2nd Concerto Symphonique was written in 1844.

I. Maestoso -  Litolff begins the concerto with the typical double exposition of the time; the orchestra makes an extended statement of material before the soloist enters with their version. Low strings make the initial quiet statement of the first theme. The full orchestra and strings expands on the theme. The second theme is more lyrical in  nature. After some ominous rumblings, the first theme returns with full orchestra in the major mode. A short transition ushers in the piano with a solo rendition of the first theme with an arpeggiated accompaniment in the left hand. The theme continues to be commented upon by the piano with a light accompaniment. The second theme enters with a solo cello accompanying the piano. Both themes are elaborated upon and the music moves effortlessly into the development section of the movement as the orchestra extends the themes until the piano returns with commentary over short motifs of the first theme. Orchestra and piano take turns until the piano begins the recapitulation with the first theme. The piano and cello return to their short duet as the second theme enters. Themes are restated and worked through, until the piano and orchestra have a dialogue in a short coda that shifts the first theme to the major mode again and the movement ends. 

II. Scherzo - While the first movement is traditional in form, if not in the method of writing for the orchestra and piano as equals, it is in the second movement where Litolff makes the innovation of adding a scherzo to a piano concerto. In Liszt's 1st Piano Concerto, which is played without pause, there are 4 distinct sections with one of them being a scherzo. Liszt may have been inspired by Litolff's Concerto Symphoniques to do the same. Bassoons and timpani begin the movement, with the piano playing off their utterances with brilliance. The trio is in a jocular mood, and very short. The scherzo is repeated, and ends with a flourish. 

III. Andante - The third movement begins with muted strings, and has an improvisatory feel.  The piano enters and plays a theme that takes its time unwinding amid the strings and horns punctuating the harmony. A middle section grows more agitated, but soon resumes a more quiet demeanor. Orchestra and piano slowly lead to a held chord that instead of resolving, leads directly to the final movement.

IV. Rondo: Allegretto - Low strings play quietly, the piano responds with flourishes up the keyboard. After a few exchanges, the movement proper begins with the rondo theme. The soloist plays flashy runs and chromatic octaves between repeats of the rondo theme. One of the episodes has the piano play a theme, and the orchestra takes it up as the soloist changes from playing the theme to accompanying the orchestra. The brilliance of the piano gradually builds until a coda has thundering octaves in the piano while the orchestra takes the music to the end.

Litolff - Piano Trio In D Minor Opus 47

Henry Litolff made a name for himself during his life as a virtuoso pianist, music publisher, composer and friend to many fellow musicians. He also had quite a reputation as a ladies' man. He was married four times and he seems to have kept on the move for most of his early years, perhaps for good reason. Although born in England, he lived most of his life in Europe. He was a prolific composer, but the majority of his music has suffered from neglect. He was primarily a composer of works for the piano, orchestra and stage, but he did write a few chamber works; three piano trios, a string quartet and a serenade for violin and piano.  He wrote the first piano trio in 1847 when he was in his late twenties.

There have been a few recordings of his Concerto Symphoniques for piano and orchestra, and a few recordings of piano pieces, but the only chamber work available on CD is the Piano Trio In D Minor.  It is in 4 movements:

I. Allegro - The cello plays a plaintive melody to open the work. The violin takes up the melody, and after the piano plays a short lead-in, the actual first theme of  the movement is heard. It is a dramatic theme that Litolff develops until the second theme is heard. The second theme is in contrast to the first as it is more lyric, but it continues a feeling of tension. The first theme returns to round out the exposition. There is a slight pause before the development begins. The first theme is heard in the solo cello, and then the piano takes it up for a short time. Litolff then shifts gears and uses the first theme for a fugue. The second theme appears as an episode in the fugue, and then the second theme gets a full hearing and is developed. The recapitulation has the first theme go through a transition that leads to the repeat of the second theme in D major. The first theme is played in the major, then a short pause before the piano begins the coda and the piece ends with a D major chord, at least in the recording linked at the end of this article. The score itself has this chord as D minor.

II. Andante - The piano presents the theme in F major and the violin and cello join in. The tension and drama of the music slowly increases until the piano plays triplet eighth note chords while the cello expands the theme. The violin joins the cello, and the instruments pass a fragment of the theme back and forth. The piano plays a variant of the theme along with the violin and cello. The piano chords change to a more regular eighth-note pulse, the strings and piano unwind the melody until the movement ends with F major as it had begun. 

III. Scherzo - Litolff starts the scherzo with a bar for solo piano followed by a run for the piano while the strings play a pizzicato note then a wide-spread chord: 

The scherzo is high-energy and scurries onward to a development of the theme, or rather the persistence of the dotted eighth-sixteenth-eighth rhythm. Litolff makes much of this slight motif, the scherzo is repeated, a short coda is added and the movement ends. 

IV. Finale: Presto - The first theme scurries about while the second theme is more lyrical and gentle. The development has the first theme treated contrapuntally. The recapitulation brings back the first theme. The second theme returns. An impassioned coda throws out fragments of the first theme as the tension increases. The key changes to D major and the drama increases as the instruments chromatically descend into a flurry as the tempo increases and the music ends in a glory of D major.  

Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 4 In D Minor

In 1854 the piano virtuoso and composer Henry Litolff made a visit to Wiemar to see Franz Liszt who was acting kappelmeister there, and the two struck up a friendship of kindred spirits. Liszt had this to say about Litolff's Concerto Symphonique No. 4 that was shown to him while still in manuscript form:

"[Litolff's] Fourth Symphonic concerto is a remarkable composition...there is certainly something winged in his [playing]"

Liszt returned the visit to Litolff in Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) where Litolff ran a music publishing house and was a leader of the local music scene. The friendship grew and Litolff invited Liszt back to Brunswick to participate in a music festival he had organized there (he also invited another of his friends Hector Berlioz), where Litolff played Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major in concert, as well as his own Concerto Symphonique No. 4.

It has been said that the sincerest form of flattery is imitation. While Liszt's First Piano Concerto certainly is  not a carbon-copy of Litolff's, it does have some similarities. Both have four movements instead of the customary three, in each case the additional movement is a scherzo. Even the notorious (at the time) addition of a triangle to the Liszt scherzo was first done by Litolff. Perhaps the greatest sign of admiration for Litolff's concerto was the dedication Liszt gave to Litolff of his First Piano Concerto. (see comment below)

Litolff was a man afflicted with wanderlust until his later years. He moved away from his native England when he was seventeen, lived in Paris, Warsaw, Brunswick, and traveled all over Europe playing the piano and composing. He was also married four times, and with his fourth wife ended his days in a suburb of Paris.   

The concerto is in four movements:

I. Allegro con fuoco -  The movement begins with a loud chord from the full orchestra followed by a short cadenza for piano. The strings play a quiet short section that leads to another loud chord for full orchestra, cadenza from the piano, and quiet section from the strings which leads to the full orchestra stating the theme that is the basis of the entire movement. The piano writing is virtuosic, sometimes being of a thematic nature and sometimes being an elaborate accompaniment to the orchestra.  The music is passionate, dramatic and is truly written as a symphony for orchestra and piano obbligato.

II. Scherzo - Presto -  This is the one piece by Litolff that is most often heard on recordings and in concert halls. The music is Mendelssohnian and includes a part for piccolo and triangle, the first time either were used in a piano concerto. The orchestra and piano have a rhythmic and rapid dialog in the scherzo, while in the trio  the orchestra plays more subdued  music, but the piano keeps interrupting the calmness with the jauntiness of the scherzo until it wins out and the scherzo is repeated. A short coda has the piano play rapid  interlocking chromatic octaves before the orchestra and piano end the movement with staccato chords.

III. Adagio religioso - Cantabile - The piano solemnly begins the movement, followed up by the horns playing the lyrical theme. The piano enters once again and plays a variant of the opening theme. The horns are accompanied by the piano as they repeat the theme. The theme drifts in and out as the piano plays runs and arpeggios.  The music reaches a climax as the theme is played again by the horns. A swell from the orchestra and piano accompanies the horns as they play a fragment of the theme. The movement ends quietly with muted strings and broken chords in the piano.

IV. Allegro impetuoso - As in the first movement, Litolff uses one theme as the inspiration for most of the movement, and this one theme is related to the motif in the first movement. This gives the entire work a cohesiveness that is more easily felt than explained. There is a short fugato treatment of the theme later in the movement for orchestra alone as the piano is quiet for a rather long stretch for a concerto. But with such difficulties throughout this concerto, a short break for the pianist isn't all bad. The piano plays all manner of figurations of tremendous difficulty. The piano plays bristling octaves and figures as it moves towards the coda that turns the music to a majestic close in the major mode.

Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 3 in E-flat Major 'National Hollandais'

Henry Litolff began his life in London, born in 1818 to a Scottish mother and a French father who had been a member of Napoleon's army who had been captured and taken to England. His father was his first teacher until he played for virtuoso pianist Ignaz Moscheles in 1830, who gave him free piano lessons. Litolff gave his first concert at fourteen years of age.

When he was seventeen he eloped with an English girl to Paris. He soon separated from his wife, moved to Brussels and ended up in Warsaw, Poland. He led the life of a traveling virtuoso and in 1844 settled in Germany and began teaching. One of his pupils was Hans von Bülow.

A wandering man by nature, he returned to England in 1845 to obtain a divorce from his wife but ended up in prison instead. He managed to escape prison (a rumor says that the jailer's daughter assisted his escape), bribed his way onto a fishing boat and ended up in Holland. He wrote his 3rd Concerto Symphonique in 1846 during his stay in Holland. 

Litolff finally got a divorce from his wife and promptly married another woman in 1851, the widow of his friend and publisher Gottfried Meyer. Litolff gained control of the publishing house with the marriage, changed the name of the business to Litoll Verlag and created the Litolff Editions of classical music that were inexpensive and more readily accessible to the general public. Three years later Litolff turned the publishing house over to his step-son, divorced his second wife and  moved once again to Paris. He married again, and when his third wife died in 1873, he married his seventeen year old nurse. He died in a suburb of Paris in 1891 after suffering from bad health for a number of years.

In his younger years Litolff's piano playing abilities were so great that he earned the nickname of The English Liszt. The four existing Concerto Symphoniques (the first is lost) attest to his pianistic abilities for they are bristling with virtuoso writing and he played them in concert. But he was also a skilled and colorful orchestrator. The Concerto Symphonique is Litolff's contribution to the concerto literature and are so-called because they are 4-movement works. The works are written symphonically, as opposed to the concertos mainly written for pianistic display, but they essentially follow traditional concerto form in their first movements:

I. Maestoso -  The timpani opens the movement and leads the woodwinds to the statement of the beginning of the first theme. The first theme leads directly to the second theme which is shorter than the first.  Parts of the first theme return and lead to the entrance of the piano that plays a cadenza-like flourish. The piano and orchestra expand on the themes already heard. The development section contains the second theme that is now turned into a lyrical piece for piano and orchestra. Growing more and more passionate the music gives way to a short cadenza for the piano that leads to a restatement of the second theme and the first theme. Brilliant passages for the piano go up and down the keyboard as the music makes a rapid return to the beginning of the first theme that ends the movement.

II. Presto - Litolff's addition of a fourth movement to the piano concerto is always in the form of a scherzo. The pianist's rapid grace notes give the music a giddy quality that is overcome in the trio which is a full-throated march-like Dutch children's song, a tune Litolff heard while he was in Holland.  Litolff shifts the time signature from 3/8 in the scherzo to 6/8 in the march tune.

III. Andante - A simple song for piano and orchestra. There is a brief episode of tension, but the piano returns to the nocturne-like mood. The horn and the cellos play the tune in turn while the piano plays gentle figures as an accompaniment. The movement ends in a solemn mood.

IV. Allegro vivace -  The piano scampers up and down the keyboard in music of great lightness and agility. Litolff once again pays homage to his temporary Holland home as he quotes another Dutch tune as his second subject.

Litolff subtitled the concerto 'National Hollandais' (The Nation of Holland) and used two Dutch songs in the work as a tribute to the freedom he enjoyed after escaping prison in England.  He certainly lived a cosmopolitan life, and with such a busy life of concertizing, womanizing and publishing, where did he find the time to compose? His opus numbers go at least to 127, with a lot of other compositions without opus numbers, as well as 12 operas. 

Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 5

Living a complicated lifestyle evidently was a part of Litolff's personality. He traveled Europe on concert tours, got married and divorced, spent time in prison, had to escape from Germany after he participated in the revolution of 1848, married a widow of a music publisher and managed the publishing firm into a successful venture, settled in Paris, was a piano teacher and conductor, was married four times - the last to a woman seventeen years old when he was 57 years old, was afflicted with rheumatism in later life but still continued to compose.  It was a life filled with hard work, travel, romance, hardship, depression and physical pain in later years.

Composing was evidently part of Litolff's personality also, as he composed throughout his life, sometimes amid thunderous turmoil. The Concerto Symphonique No. 5  is his Opus 123 and was written in 1869. He died in 1891, 22 years later and continued composing, mostly operas,  up until the end.

The Concerto Symphonique No. 5  has some differences from the previous ones. For one thing, the other Concerto Symphonique's are not by any means easy to play, but the fifth is even more demanding.  The fifth never achieved the popularity of the others. In the other works the scherzo is the second movement, in the fifth it is placed third.  Overall, the general feeling of the fifth is a little more serious, somewhat more complicated.

The work opens with a long orchestral section before the piano joins in in the give-and-take style that Litolff used in all the concertos. The second movement is a slow, lyrical song. The third movement is the most diabolical sounding scherzo Litolff ever wrote.  The fourth movement's cadenza is written out and is a fugue derived from part of the theme that opens the movement.

Litolff and Liszt knew and admired each other's music, and each ones music influenced the other. The concertos of Litolff show the influence of Liszt in structure and harmonic language, and the fact that Liszt dedicated  his first piano concerto to Litolff can be meant as a tribute to his influence. For a musician that composed so much and was friends with and admired by such other composers as Liszt and Berlioz, the four Concerto Symphoniques  are really the only pieces available on recordings, and only one recording of each one at that. Litolff's most popular piece of music is the scherzo from the Concerto Symphonique No. 4  which is available in a few recordings. It would be a good thing to be able to hear more of this composer's music, in the concert hall and on recordings.

Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 5