PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

T
HERE ARE MANY SIMILARITIES in the genesis of
the first and second books of Liszt’s Années de
Pèlerinage: most of the pieces in both books were
conceived in the 1830s during his travels to and from
Switzerland and Italy with Marie d’Agoult, a time which
saw the birthof the couple’s three children, Blandine,
Cosima and Daniel, and for Liszt a period of intense
compositional activity, punctuated by a good many
concerts. The two books were eventually prepared for
publication in their final form by the early 1850s, in Liszt’s
busiest period as a composer/conductor at the court of
Weimar. Their story is also paralleled by that of the
Transcendental Etudes and the Hungarian Rhapsodies,
which achieved their final form at about the same time. In
the case of the Swiss volume, Liszt had selected all but one
of the pieces from the previously published Album d’un
Voyageur; with the Italian set only three of the pieces had
appeared in print in earlier versions—the Petrarch
Sonnets—although all but one of the remaining pieces
had been drafted in the late 1830s. The supplementary
volume Venezia e Napoli had been ready for publication
in about 1840, but was withdrawn by Liszt at the proof
stage. The later set of pieces with the same title discarded
two of the earlier set, revised two, and added a new piece
between them. The important difference between the two
books lies in the source of inspiration: although various
literary references lie in the background to the Swiss
volume, the principal imaginative spring is the landscape
of Switzerland itself; the second Année draws entirely
upon Italian art and literature.
Sposalizio was first written in 1838 or 1839, and the
manuscript shows at least two levels of revision before
the version finally published. (The only complete and
performable earlier version will appear in Volume 48 of
this series, along with the earlier versions of the Dante
Sonata.) Liszt composed the work in homage to Raphael’s
2
eponymous painting of the betrothal of Our Lady and
St Joseph (which may be seen in the Brera Chapel in
Milan). We know from Liszt’s later use of the second
theme (G major, Lento) in the work for voices and organ
called Zur Trauung (‘At the betrothal’) and otherwise
catalogued as Ave Maria III that this melody honours
Mary, but Liszt offers no further clues to the musical
characterization. The uncanny presentiment in the closing
phrases of Debussy’s First Arabesque has often been
noted.
Michelangelo’s sculpture Il penseroso may be seen on
the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the church of San
Lorenzo in Florence. The music is amongst the simplest
and most stark of Liszt’s early mature works, and appears
to have been incorporated as it was originally written in
1838/9. The work was later revised and extended to form
the second of the Trois Odes funèbres: ‘La notte’ (in
Volume 3), and both works bear Michelangelo’s quatrain:
Grato m’è il sonno, e più l’esser di sasso.
Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura.
Non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura
Però non mi destar, deh’—parla basso!
Sleep, nay, being made of rock,
makes me happy whilst harm and shame endure.
It is a great adventure neither to see nor to hear.
However, disturb me not, pray—lower your voice!
Translation by Leslie Howard
Of course, Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) was primarily a
painter, but he was also an actor, a poet, a satirist and
a musician. Nonetheless, the saucy little Canzonetta del
Salvator Rosa is not his music, although the text may be
by or about him. The work (originally for voice and basso
continuo) is listed in The New Grove amongst the cantatas
for solo voice of the once greatly celebrated Giovanni
Battista Bononcini (1670–1747)—under the title of its
opening line ‘Vado ben spesso’, and unaccountably