Late works (Liszt)

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Last photo of Franz Liszt. Photographer unknown.
Last photo of Franz Liszt. Photographer unknown.

The radical change Franz Liszt's compositional style underwent in the last 20 years of his life was unprecedented in Western classical music. The tradition of music had been one of unified progression, even to the extent of Johannes Brahms' First Symphony being known as "Beethoven's Tenth. Beethoven's own three periods of composition, compared to Liszt's, is monolithic and united.

Replacing pages thick with notes and virtuoso passages in Liszt's earlier compositions is a starkness where every note and rest carefully weighed and calculated, while the works themselves become more experimental harmonically. Liszt's sense of compositional form underwent a comparative transformation, as well. Instead of striving to wed the objective rules of musical form in German classicism to the spirit of cosmopolitan romanticism, Liszt now pursued a path that seemed anti-symphonic, even anti-constructivist. [1]

At the same time, no other 19th century composer offers the thinking musician such a brimming cornucopia of forward-looking technical devices. Later works of the composer such as Bagatelle sans tonalité ("Bagatelle without Tonality") foreshadow composers who would further explore the modern concept of atonality. A famous example of this later style is Nuages Gris; it can also be seen to some extent in the third volume of the Années de Pèlerinage. Liszt's work also foreshadowed the impressionism that would characterize the work of Debussy and Ravel, as shown in 'Les Jeux d'Eaux à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este) from the third volume of Années de Pèlerinage.

Contents

[edit] A more complex picture

As Alan Walker writes in his volume covering Liszt's late years, it can be tempting to think of Liszt as the father of modern music on the basis of his late music. From our vantage point, it would seem that his experiments in harmony, his audacious handling of musical form, his unparalleled ability to draw strange sounds from the concert grand, would all apparently confirm that Liszt was one of the true revolutionaries in music. But to look at these achievements as ends in themselves would be erroneous.[2]

Liszt's technical achievements in his late music are one side of a more complex picture. Three essential parts of this picture are tragedy in Liszt's personal life, developments in his friendship with Wagner and his increasing interest in Hungarian and other national schools of composition, as opposed to the more cosmopolitan style in which he wrote much earlier. [3]

[edit] Desolation, despair and death

By the early 1880s, Liszt was often ravaged by a universal sadness, descending without warning and threatening to overwhelm everything he did. He told Lina Ramann, "I carry with me a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound."[4]

Liszt wrestled daily with the demons of desolation, despair and death, bringing forth music that utterly failed to find its audience. We now know, in retrospect, that Liszt's contemporaries were offered a glimpse into a mind on the verge of catastrophe. They formed what Bence Szabolcsi calls "a conspiracy of silence" on the late pieces — one not lifted until modern times.[5]

Liszt's works from this period fall into three categories:

  • Music of retrospection
  • Music of despair
  • Music of death

The first category contains pieces in which a troubled spirit seeks consolation in memories of the past. Liszt referred to this music as his "forgotten" pieces — sardonically referring to compositions forgotten before even played, with titles such as Valse oubliée, Polka oubliée and Romance oubliée.[6]

The second category, music of despair, can appear much more important since the titles of the pieces in this category would seem to point to a troubled mind. These titles include:

  • Schafflos! Frage und Antwort
  • Unstern! Sinastre, Diastro
  • Nuages gris
  • Ossa arida
  • Csárdás macabre
  • Abschied

These pieces, as well as others in this category, can be best understood as fragments broken off from a greater whole, each offering a glimpse of a pathology of despair. Though they do not share any overtly musical connections, they seem to fit with one another like members of a large family who never settle on one place yet become acquainted through chance encounters at smaller gatherings.[7]

The third category, music of death, contains pieces where Liszt raised grief to high art. Memorials, elegies, funerals and other aspects of the grieving process find their place in this music. Again, a sampling of titles in this grouping:

  • Funeral March for Emperor Maximilian
  • Seven Hungarian Historical Portraits
  1. Széchenyi Isván (Lament)
  2. Eötvös Jôzsef
  3. Vörösmarty Mihály
  4. Teleki László (Funeral Music)
  5. Deák Ferenc
  6. Petõfi Sándor (In Memory of)
  7. Monsoni Mihály (Funeral Music)
  • Funeral Prelude and Funeral March
  • Elegy in Memory of Mme Mouchanoff
  • Und wir dachten der Toten (And We Thought of the Dead)

Liszt once referred to his works in this category as his "mortuary pieces," perhaps as a joke intended to deflect criticism. As Walker puts it: "These pieces reveal a soul in turmoil. Since that is also a part of the human condition, there can be something here for all of us".[8]

[edit] Economy of Means

Compared to the creative abundance of earlier compositions, the music of Liszt's old age is unusually economic. Given barely enough notes to ensure their existence, his late pieces frequently lapse into monody, then silence. Sometimes a piece is open-ended, simply vanishing. This practice of "abandoning" a work in mid-air had been done previously by Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann. Liszt's practice, however, is more radical. An example of this is in the Mephistp Polka, where the piece is simply deserted at the end, without explanation.[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ogdon, John, ed. Walker, Alan, Franz Liszt: The Man and His Music (New York: Taplinger Publlishing Company, 1970), 134-135.
  2. ^ Walker, Alan, Liszt: The Final Years, 1861-1886 (Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 437.
  3. ^ Ogdon, 135.
  4. ^ Walker, Liszt: The Final Years, pp. 437-438.
  5. ^ Walker, Liszt: The Final Years, p. 438.
  6. ^ Walker, Liszt: The Final Years, p. 438.
  7. ^ Walker, Liszt: The Final Years, p. 438.
  8. ^ Walker, Liszt: The Final Years, p. 439
  9. ^ Walker, The Final Years, 442.

[edit] Further Reading

Walker, Alan, Liszt: The Final Years, 1861-1886 (Cornell University Press, 1997).

[edit] Recordings

Michael Sayers: Liszt's Resignazione as a mp3 file

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