The Late Liszt

Nostalgia, Death, Despair&Wagner

Angélus! Prière aux anges gardiens String Quartet

Vallée d'Obermann Piano Trio
Romance oubliée Cello&Piano
Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth (Elegie) Cello&Piano
Élégie No. 1 Cello, Harp, Organ&Piano
Élégie No. 2 Cello&Piano

Nuages gris (Trübe Wolken) Cello&Piano

Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort Cello&Piano
Unstern: sinistre, disastro Cello&Piano
Wagner/Liszt: O du, mein holder Abendstern Cello&Piano
La lugubre gondola I Piano
La lugubre gondola II Cello&Piano
R. W. – Venezia String Quartet, Organ&Piano
Am Grabe Richard Wagners String Quartet&Harp

In 1847, at the age of 35, while still at the height of his powers, Franz Liszt gave up
his international concert career. This can be viewed as a turning point in his life, but
not of a sudden change, more as a ‘middle-point’ of a gradual shift.
Before this point the emphasis in his life was mainly on performing; afterwards he
concentrated more on composition, still giving private concerts though. Before, he
was an international celebrity as an artist, a phenomenon that Heinrich Heine dubbed
“Lisztomania”, with fame, success and crowds; in his late years according to Bence
Szabolcsi, the pioneer of researching Liszt’s late pieces, he was almost forgotten in
Budapest.
At his younger age Liszt was known as the virtuoso, he discovered several technical
solutions and dazzling effects on the piano. In his late years he invested his technical
achievements in his compositions, they became harmonically daring with intense
chromaticism and tonal ambiguity; these pieces have an economy of means (‘fewer
notes’), sometimes ending in long monodial passages and silence. Many of Liszt’s
first compositions were transcriptions, paraphrases of popular tunes of his time - a
good example of the gradualness of the shift in his life is the fact that even in his last
years he wrote more than 10 pieces based on other composers’ works, among them
the Réminiscences de Boccanegra.
Liszt was once called as Mephisto disguised as an abbé, and he himself wrote that he
feels as if he were half Gypsy and half Franciscaner. He also remarked that: “I didn’t
just write Dante Symphony, I also wrote Faust Symphony”. Therefore do we have the
feeling that the gradual shift in his life is from the secular to the sacred; a pilgrimage
starting with his religious soul-searching after the death of his father, to the priesthood
and beyond.
The vast majority of Liszt’s compositions focus on the piano; only in his last years did
he start to prepare chamber music transcriptions of his pieces, which are the subject of
tonight’s concert. It is no wonder that Liszt arranged his elegies to the cello, as it is
viewed by many as the instrument most capable of depicting timbre of a man’s inner
sadness and longing.
The Anées de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) is a three volume set of pieces
inspired by Liszt’s concert tours. “Having recently travelled to many new countries,
through different settings and places consecrated by history and poetry; having felt
that the phenomena of nature and their attendant sights did not pass before my eyes as
pointless images but stirred deep emotions in my soul, and that between us a vague
but immediate relationship had established itself, an undefined but real rapport, an
inexplicable but undeniable communication, I have tried to portray in music a few of
my strongest sensations and most lively impressions."

“In early October, there was the holiday of the Holy Angels. I wrote a hundred or so
measures for them…and whish I could better express my intimate devotion to the
divine messengers” wrote Liszt referring to Angelus (Prayer to the Guardian Angels).
This piece, dedicated to Daniela von Bulow, Liszt's granddaughter, is the first of the
third volume in Années. It was written for both melodeon and piano, and later
transcribed for string quartet by Liszt himself.
The text of the prayer begins as:
The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and
blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Liszt spoke about the inspiration for the beginning of the piece to an English cleric in
Villa d’Este in Italy, where he said: ‘You know, they ring Angelus in Italy carelessly;
the bells swing irregularly, and leave off, and the cadences are thus often broken up.’
The piece is written in E major, which is Liszt’s religious or transcendental key. The
music pictures an impressionistic landscape, pastorale like, but not without a sense of
trouble, regret or loss. In the end it quiets to a simple monody in the middle register.

Vallée d'Obermann (Obermann’s Valley), is also from Années de pèlerinage. It is in

the first volume (First Year: Switzerland), originally composed in 1835, with the third
recomposed version for piano trio dating from 1880.
The piece itself dramatically and vividly communicates ennui and longing, which is
also captured by the captions in the score, including one from Byron's Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage ("Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,--
could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul--heart--mind--
passions--feelings--strong or weak-- / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, /
Bear, know, feel--and yet breathe--into one word, / And that one word were
Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless
thought, sheathing it as a sword.") and two from Senancour's Obermann, which
include the crucial questions, “What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?"

“Oh, Why?” (Oh pourquoi donc), translates the title of a song composed in 1848 in
Moscow, on which Romance oubliée (Forgotten romance) is based. It joins some
other “forgotten” pieces, like Polka oubliée and Valz oubliée, as pieces of
retrospection with titles suggesting that they were already forgotten before they were
ever played.
In the piece marked as Andante, malinconico (melancolic), a troubled spirit seeks
consolation in the memory of the past. The first part captures the true essence of the
Mediterranians (perhaps a memory of a girl from Naples?), and the second part,
woven together with a small cadenza, foreshadows the impressionistic movement in a
somewhat similar way as Courbet’s pictures of the 1840s do. It is because of this
piece (and a few more) that many musicians think of Liszt as a forerunner of some
distinctive tendencies of the first half of the 20th century like impressionism.

Another piece, with the instruction malincolico(also epressivo), is Die Zelle in

Nonnenwerth (Elegie). Originally it was also a song, composed in the 1840s on a
poem by Fürst von Lichnowsky, celebrating a desolate and mysterious island in the
Rhine, where a half-ruined Benedictine abbey stands. In that convent did Liszt and his
mistress and mother of his children, Countess Marie d'Agoult, spend the summers
together, between 1841-43. The song was dedicated to her.
Liszt made four versions of this song so strongly associated with the Countess, the
first one in ’42 while on tour (meeting her only in the summers); the other versions
after they had separated. The 4th version, dating from 1880, was transcribed for cello
and piano in 1883. Comparing the different versions gives us a unique chance to see
the “shift” in Liszt’s life, as the subsequent arrangements got more and more simple
in texture, with the last version having lost all externals such as cadenzas, or any
pianistic features. Instead, long monodical pentaton pastoral-like lines appear in a
harmonically visionary fashion, applying mediant chords and modulations throughout
the piece, in the end depicting the bells of the abbey, not unlike Angelus!.
The piece, subtitled Elegia pictures par excellence nostalgia - both tender
reminiscence and bitter regret, a lament on the time when the family was still
together.

Élégie No. 1 was composed in 1874, dedicated to the memory of an old friend, Marie
Moukhanoff-Kalergis. The subtitle of the piece is Schlummerlied im Grabe (Cradle
song at the Grave). Liszt, himself described the piece as “more for dreaming than for
playing”. The selection of instruments is particularly interesting as the combination of
cello, harp, harmonium and piano shows in how many different ways one can produce
sound: it can be by some sort of traction against a string (cello), by the plucking of a
string (harp), by the vibration of air (organ) and with the hitting of something (piano)
(in a piano the strings are hit by a mechanism connecting the keys with the hammers).
This rhymes with the ancient Greeks’ theory of the classical elements. According to
Empedocles (B.C. 450), the four main elements were Fire, Water, Air and Earth.
These were of basic importance in antic philosophy and medicine as parts of the
Cosmos, where everything exists, and as the elements of which everything is made.
This concept was transferred by the Roman Empire through the Middle-Ages and the
Renaissance up to the Enlightenment as an organic part of the European world view.
From here it takes only one step to see that the traction could stand for Fire, the
plucking of the strings for Water (water drops), the vibration of air for the Air, and the
hitting of something the Earth (gaiaphone).
This was not the first appearance of the four classical elements in Liszt’s oeuvre, his
Les Preludes was originally composed as an overture for an unpublished male choir
cycle Les quatres éléments (The four Elements). The next similar experiment in
instrumentation dates from 1955, with Le marteau sans maître (The hammer without a
master) by Pierre Boulez, for alto flute, guitar, viola and vibraphone, together with
voice and xylorimba.

Élégie No. 2 from 1877, also known as Entwurf der Ramann-Elegie, was dedicated to
Lina Ramann, in gratitude for an article she had written about the first one.
This elegie also shares the same elements as the preceding two pieces.
It begins with a lament of bitter sadness in a monodic line; in the beginning of the first
elegie one can almost hear the first two notes asking “Why?”(Warum?). The
recitativo of an accusing tone is followed by a rising melody of a very nostalgic,
introspective mood and sorrowful lyricism. This improvisation-like reminiscence is
played twice, one semitone apart – this type of structural development with
chromatical pitch relations is a common feature among Liszt’s late pieces.
This is followed by a haunted dolce part in A flat major, Liszt’s typical key choice for
depicting love (like the third Liebestraum) with the markings dolce amoroso – as if
perhaps Liszt was thinking back on the love they shared.
This section gradually develops into an outbursting apassionato climax full of painful
emotion, a refren of tragic grandeur.
Afterwards the music becomes soft again, the melody in a major key rises into a high
register. In this soft part, marked dolce espressivo, one can hear the composer
resigning to fate, and finding consolation in the idea that it is better now for the
deceased in heaven. In the end the chords fade to nothing, giving a sense of floating in
space and time, leaving us with a feeling that these pieces themselves carry the
‘shifts’, from earthly passions to eternal glory.

In 1881 Liszt fell down the stairs of the Hofgärtnerei, his home in Weimar, and his
health took a precipitous slide from then, physically never fully recovering from the
accident. This also had an effect on his mental condition, as he was afterwards more
and more overcome by depression, doubts about his own achievements, despair and
thoughts of death. “I am carrying a deep sadness of the heart, which must now and
then break out in sound” wrote Liszt to a friend.
The pieces he composed during these last years are unprecedented in their forms and
harmonies. The titles carry a hint of the troubled mind, implying a depressive,
anguished mood. They are usually short, fragmented and open-ended, in the end
simply vanishing, abandoning the piece.
Silence also plays such an important role in these pieces that will only be matched by
John Cage’s works; when the monophonic lines fade out and then restart once again,
one always faces the question, if silence actually connects or divides. Harmonically
they stretch – and sometimes suspend - the limits of tonality with special scales
(whole tone, Gypsy, modal, etc), special chords – e.g. ones built around forths, and
special tonalities, like politonality and atonality, the Bagatell sans Tonalitat carrying
this even in its title.

Nuages gris (Trübe Wolken) (Grey clouds) was composed just a couple of months
after his accident. Desolation can almost be touched between every two notes of the
piece.
Many consider the Nuages Gris to be a gateway to modern music as it is perhaps not
yet fully atonal, but showing just patches of tonality with a lot of ambiguity, where
some chords are not built around thirds, like in previous centuries, but fourths. It
includes keyless augmented chords rising without any ‘points of reference’, and the
melody remindes of the lydian mode. One of its more intriguing features is its ending,
which drifts off into keylessness, and progresses to that point in a manner foretelling
Impressionism in music.

Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort (Nocturne) (Sleepless! Question and Answer) was
written after a poem by Toni Raab, now lost in 1883.
The piece consist of two parts; the first part – the Question - begins in medias res,
with an restless, agitated tempo. The cellos upward-reaching phrases aim higher and
higher, spinning in chaos, perhaps depicting a spiritual struggle, existential angst.
This restless e minor part swirls into the climax, then comes the Antwort (Answer),
marked andante quieto, in E major. As Alan Walker writes: “E major is Liszt’s
‘religious key’. Since the note E is sustained as a pedal-point throughout the entire
Question, Liszt is suggesting that the Question actually contains the Answer. The
piece might be described as a musical equivalent of the biblical text ‘Come unto me
all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give ye rest.’ In brief, its subject is
redemption.”
The piece is abandoned without resolution.
(It might appear to have been a source of inspiration for Charles Ives’s The
Unanswered Question, however, that was composed in 1906, and Liszt’s piece made
it to publication only in 1927.)

Unstern: sinistre, disastro (1880–86) is also stark and bleak with dissonant harmonies
and an exploration of the whole-tone scale and augmented chords. The title has words
from three different languages and could be translated as “Dark Star! Sinister,
disastrous.”
Unstern is divided into three distinct sections. The introduction begins with bare
octaves with special emphasis on a descending tritone (an interval that for centuries
was highly symbolic and even forbidden as it was considered demonic and extremely
dissonant), reminiscent of a recitativo or some sort of a chant. Then starts a loud
passage in octaves that sounds almost like a trumpet section in the piano, with the
cello playing motives built on the whole-tone scale. These passages gradually rise in a
chromatic sequence and lead into a whole tone scale in the bass, which ends in a
tremolo. On top of this tremolo, Liszt builds a rising phrase in accelerando, with an
augmented chord moving in chromatic steps until it resolves into an extremely
dissonant chord in fff ending this section., which, according to Peter Raabe, sounds
like if a prisoner was hammering on a wall, knowing full well that no one would hear
him.
The last part of the piece is written as a chorale which never resolves but instead
constantly leads into chromatic scales. In the end, it all fades out, unresolved, into a
whole-tone scale in the lowest register of the piano.
The pianist Ahmed Fernando Anzaldúa called it “meditation on the end of the world.
The first part is the apocalypse, trumpets and all; the second represents the prayers of
a terrified humanity. The unrelenting dissonance in the harmony and the failure to
ever resolve makes this piece very difficult to listen to, which is the composer’s
intent. Most of Liszt’s late works are uncomfortable for everyone: the listener, the
interpreter and, probably, Liszt himself.”

One point not normally discussed in connection with Liszt though raised in the
literature on late 19th-century composers was his consciousness of working in the
shadow of composers he considered giants. In Liszt's case, the shadows were those of
Beethoven and Wagner. He felt something of an inferiority complex compared to
these composers - he professed to find consolation and inspiration in their works.
Wagner and Liszt were closest friends, relatives, and also camerades-in-arms in the so
called ‘War of the Romantics’. Liszt unselfishly helped Wagner, promoting his music
even when their relationship was shadowed over Liszt’s daughter!s, Cosima’s
breaking of her marriage for Wagner. Liszt also transcribed a number of Wagner’s
works, including the O du mein holder Abendstern (Song to the Evening Star) which
is a recitativo and a romance from the opera Tannhäuser. It was first transcribed by
Liszt for solo piano, afterwards he arranged it for cello and piano.
In the scene Elisabeth, niece of Thüringen's Landgrave, kneels before a crucifix
praying for the return of her beloved, the Minnesinger knight Tannhäuser. Pilgrims
returning from Rome pass in the distance -- Tannhäuser is not among them. After a
prayer to the Virgin begging to be gathered to the company of angels, she moves
slowly toward the Langrave's castle, leaving Tannhäuser's rival, Wolfram von
Eschenbach, alone with his unrequited love for her. Taking up his harp, he muses
upon a portent of Elisabeth's death as twilight creeps over the valley. And in a
drooping melody of noble simplicity he implores the evening star to "...greet her when
she passes, when she soars above this mortal vale to become a blessed angel in
heaven!"
The music shows a mixture of disappointed love with religiosity.

The La lugubre gondola I (Funeral Gondola)(1882) and the La lugubre gondola II

(1885) are surely the saddest of the Elegies – for, according to his correspondence
with Lina Ramann, this piece was originally to have been entitled Troisième Élégie
(Third Elegie). They were written when Liszt was Richard Wagner's guest in Palazzo
Vendramin on the Grand Canal in Venice, late 1882. As Wagner was terminally sick
at the time, Liszt may have had a premonition there of his death. Seeing the funeral
processions on the lagoons of Venice float by could have also inspired the work.
Cosima – Wagner’s wife, Liszt’s daughter – kept a diary, where she made an entry
during Liszt’s visit: “Today [Wagner] begins to talk about my father again, very blunt
in his truthfulness; he described his new works as ‘budding insanity’ and finds it
impossible to develop a taste for their dissonances.”
Liszt surely was within the earshot playing the piano in the palazzo. Is it possible that
Wagner overheard the elegies that were actually written for him? And considered
them as ‘budding insanity’?..
In these pieces Liszt’s thoughts circled mostly around the Prelude to Wagner’s
Tristan und Isolde, in which the use of chromatic half-steps have reached a
complexity never previously attained, and in which love and longing were expressed
with unprecedented intensity. Taking cue from this masterpiece, Liszt moved even
further away from the traditional tonality, to the point where it is very difficult if not
impossible to say what key the music is. The first Lugubre gondola is still closer to a
Venetian barcarola (song the boatmen sang while propelling the gondolas); it is in
6/8 time and a continuous, undulating accompaniment, though it ends with a startling
dissonance. La lugubre gondola II, by contrast in 4/4; startling, unaccompanied
melodic lines alternate with modified barcarola fragments, ending with another
unaccompanied melody in the manner of a great question mark.

Wagner died in Venice on February 13, 1883, and the long funeral procession to
Bayreuth began with the funeral gondola to Venice's Santa Lucia railway station.
If La lugubre gondola was the music of premotion, R. W. – Venezia is the mourning
itself, the third ‘Wagner elegy’ by Liszt, composed after he learned that Wagner had
finally passed away. As Alan Walker puts it: “This is music of catastrophe. It is void
and without a form. For thirty-one measures this hopeless, keyless music strives to
find the light. It arrives at a ‘Wagnerian fanfare,’ which ascends through B-flat and D-
flat and reaches a plateau on E major, only to collapse and fall back into the abyss.”

On May 22, 1883 a memorial concert was held in Weimar to mark Wagner’s
birthday. He would have been seventy years old. Liszt composed his fourth Wagner
elegy for this day, Am Grabe Richard Wagners (At the Grave of Richard Wagner),
and simultaneously made a transcription for string quartet and harp.
The manuscript bears the inscription: “Wagner once reminded me of the likeness of
his Parsifal and my previously written Excelsior! May this remembrance remain here.
He fulfilled the Great and Sublime in the art of present day.”
The motif mentioned is the motif of the Sacrament from Parsifal. In Liszt’s piece this
motif is cast in a variety of different tonal contexts, and quoting Alan Walker again:
“this Parsifal-Excelsior! reminiscence gives way to an eternal transfiguration of the
motif from Parsifal – surely a benediction on the Liszt-Wagner relationship itself.”

Summed up, in these pieces Liszt examines his past life, confronts death, and looks
ahead for what’s to come, putting his experience in notes, leaving it for the player and
listener to make as much out of it as we can.

May this concert serve as a prelude to the 2011 Liszt year.

Wednesday, December 8. 20:00pm

Chapel of the Holy Innocents

Fangyue He - violin
Shawn Moore - violin
Leah Gastler - viola
Tamás Zétényi – cello
Anna Bikales - harp
Liang-yu Wang - piano
Zsolt Balogh - organ