Four Centuries of Great Music November 27, 2021 Franz Liszt

Today is the last show here on Saturdays as the Metropolitan Opera Saturday Matinee is returning to WRUU beginning on December 4^th and running through mid-June we are moving to Sundays from 3-5pm.  And this last show on Saturday will focus on Franz Liszt.   We are beginning with his Piano Concerto #1 in E Flat. The main themes of Liszt's first piano concerto are written in a sketchbook dated 1830, when Liszt was only nineteen years old. He seems to have completed the work in 1849, yet made further adjustments in 1853. It was premiered in Weimar in 1855, with the composer at the piano and Hector Berlioz conducting. Liszt made yet more changes before publication in 1856. Béla Bartók described it as "the first perfect realisation of cyclic sonata form, with common themes being treated on the variation principle"  It is in 4 movements 1. Allegro Maestoso, 2. Quasi Adagio            , 3. Allegretto Vivace and 4. Allegro Marziale Animato           

Ferruccio Busoni was a pianist of epochal stature, and one of Busoni’s most ambitious piano transcriptions was his arrangement of Franz Liszt’s organ piece Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam”. In the Liszt organ work,  sacred music becomes the point of departure for a bombastic concert piece to be played on a church organ. A further transcription for piano then removes the piece utterly from the religious sphere and transforms it into a pianistic tour-de-force.

Orpheus is a symphonic poem written by Franz Liszt in 1853–54. He numbered it No. 4 in the cycle of 12 he wrote during his time in Weimar, Germany and really originated the idea of the themed symphonic poem. It was first performed on 16 February 1854.

The Hungarian Rhapsodies is a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed by Franz Liszt during 1846–1853, and later in 1882 and 1885. Liszt also arranged versions for orchestra, piano duet and piano trio.  Probably one of  the most famous and popular of these is the second rhapsody.

Franz Liszt Piano Transcription of Richard Wagner's Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, S. 447:

Liszt also arranged a number of symphonic works for solo piano by other composers.  A good example of that is his transcription of Richard Wagner’s Isolde’s Liebestod from his opera Tristan und Isolde.

Franz Liszt: Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este) from the third suite of Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage)

This next work is from a series of 3 suites called Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) from the third of these suites and entitled Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este).  Liszt wrote at the top of the manuscript from the Gospel of John "But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life". This piece, with its advanced harmonies and shimmering textures, is in many ways a precursor of musical Impressionism.         

We are closing this program on Franz Liszt with his Totentanz, S 126            Totentanz: Paraphrase on Dies irae, S.126, is the name of a work for solo piano and orchestra by Franz Liszt notable for being based on the Gregorian plainchant melody Dies irae as well as for stylistic innovations. It was first planned in 1838, completed and published in 1849 

Join us at a new day SUNDAYs from 3-5 pm for more Four Centuries of Great Music.