PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

of Assisi, when St Francis, marvelling at a multitude of
birds in the trees by his path, breaks off his travels in
order to preach to them. Liszt’s ‘other’ patron saint, St
Francis of Paola, is not so famous, but his story provokes
a stupendous musical response from Liszt, who kept a
painting of the legend in his study for many years: a ferryman
refused to carry the saint across the Straits of
Messina, saying that saints ought to be able to walk on
water. Improvising both raft and sail from his cloak and
staff, St Francis crossed safely. Each of these legends
quotes one of Liszt’s own choral pieces inspired by each
saint: the first uses a theme from Cantico del Sol, S4; the
second a passage from An den heiligen Franziskus von
Paula, S28. The narrative background to the pieces in no
way hampers Liszt from devising a very satisfying musical
structure.
The Berceuse exists in two very different versions: the
1854 piece is, for all its debt to Chopin’s model, also in
D flat, with a constant D flat pedal-note, simpler than
Chopin’s in conception, and largely free from florid
decoration. The later version, whilst it preserves the
harmonies of the original and the melodic fragments,
applies an almost overwhelming amount of filigree ornament.
Although this makes for rather a long work, it is
also an impressively soothing one, and the studied
absence of a continuous melodic line produces an ineluctable
wistfulness. The Impromptu, too, has a second
version, curiously entitled Nocturne, but the changes are
slight, and, frankly, do not improve upon the original
score which is recorded here. One of a number of isolated
pieces which Liszt composed for his friend, the Baroness
von Meyendorff, the Impromptu stands on the threshold
of the extraordinary avant-garde world of Liszt’s final
years, and, although the piece is cast in F sharp, there is
a colourful ambiguity in some of the harmonic movement.
The Piano Piece in A flat No 1 is a real rarity. The
Neue Liszt-Ausgabe does not print it [at the time of
writing], believing it to be lost. They do print the Piano
Piece in A flat No 2, of uncertain date, which is more or
less identical with the main theme of the First Ballade, but
transposed into A flat. Both works are album-leaves, and
neither was given a title by Liszt himself. Briefly, the
history of No 1 is that it was sighted in manuscript in 1968
when it was auctioned into private hands, and has not
been seen since. But a previous owner of the manuscript
had permitted its publication in The Piano Student—
a magazine long since defunct—in December 1935,
whence the Liszt Society obtained it, for publication in
1988 through Bardic Press. Composed in May 1865, and
marked Sans mesure, this work, too, bridges the gap
between the world of the Liebesträume and that of the late
pieces, and does so with utter simplicity.
The two Polonaises once again recall Chopin, but only
for the titles; the epic spread of the first one, in particular,
has no equivalent in the Polish composer’s canon, and
there is a ceremonial feeling to the second which brings
other non-Polish Polonaises to mind, such as those of
Beethoven, Schubert or Tchaikovsky. The C minor piece,
entitled ‘mélancolique’ by Liszt, though most editions
omit to mention it, has remained rather sadly neglected,
but it is an excellent work of its kind, seeming to bear the
woes of the whole world on its shoulders. Even the contrasting
major-key tune fails to alleviate the gloom, which
is confirmed by a very strange meditative cadenza in
which the pulse changes to and the dance-style of the
Polonaise becomes a distant memory. The Second
Polonaise used to be something of a warhorse: Busoni
played it (and saddled it with much too long a cadenza,
however interesting!), and Rachmaninov and Grainger
both recorded it. A little less hackneyed nowadays, it
remains a good foil for its companion, and its ingredients
of two splendid themes and some really musical pyrotechnical
variations make it a compelling concert-piece.
LESLIE HOWARD © 1988
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