PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

The Complete Liszt Piano Music
INTRODUCTION
Although Liszt had written a number of works with piano or voices and orchestra, his
output for orchestra alone really began in earnest in Weimar, where he had an orchestra
at his constant disposal, staffed by some really fine musicians. He took many risks, and
over a period of twelve years conducted much new or controversial repertoire, especially
in the opera theatre. Famous premieres include Lohengrin, Alfonso und Estrella and
Der Barbier von Baghdad, and famous revivals include Der fliegende Holländer,
Tannhäuser, Fidelio, La favorite, Ernani and Benvenuto Cellini. During the 1840s he
had begun to plan a series of orchestral pieces inspired by works of art in other genres,
and in Weimar he produced a series of twelve symphonic poems (Ce qu’on entend sur
la montagne, Tasso, Les préludes, Orpheus, Prometheus, Mazeppa, Festklänge, Heroïde
funèbre, Hungaria, Hamlet, Hunnenschlacht and Die Ideale)—a form of his own
invention, related to the concert overture. Over these years he revised much of his earlier
piano music, reissuing the works under the titles by which they have endured: the Années
de pèlerinage I & II, the Rapsodies hongroises, the Grandes Études de Paganini, the
Études d’exécution transcendante and the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (now a
series of ten pieces). He also reworked many of his earlier songs and, by the end of his
tenure in Weimar, published sixty of them. This period also saw the composition of the
monumental piano sonata and the two masterful symphonies, one inspired by Goethe’s
Faust, the other by Dante’s Divina Commedia. In all of these works, Liszt strove for new
structures that would extend the working life of the sonata-form that dominated most
large-scale instrumental music of the day. He also had visions of a new music for the
church and, despite his detractors, wrote an excellent orchestral Mass—the Missa
solennis for the consecration of the Basilica at Esztergom (Gran)—and two Psalms
with orchestra, alongside quite a number of more modest motets, and he began the
composition of his considerable corpus of organ music with the mighty fantasy and fugue
Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. He also began his teaching life in earnest, and his pupils
would include such first-rate musicians as Tausig, von Bülow and Reubke. Liszt became
a mentor and provider to many younger musicians who found their way to Weimar and,
as ever, since their friendship had begun, continued to subsidize Wagner. Liszt’s domestic
life in Weimar was quite difficult: Princess Carolyne remained married to her husband in
Russia, who was a great friend of Tsar Nicholas I. The tsar’s sister, the Grand Duchess
Maria Pavlovna, was a close friend at court of the Grand Duke of Weimar, who was Liszt’s
employer. Liszt was obliged to put up at a hotel whilst the Princess took the rooms
provided for Liszt at the Altenburg in order to avoid scandal, but scandal there was,
nonetheless. Political intrigue finally provoked resignation, and Liszt set forth to Rome,
where he lodged for a time as a guest of Pope Pius IX.
At the end of the Weimar period, Liszt had started work on his two great oratorios: St
Elizabeth and Christus, and these, along with important pieces such as the Zwei Episoden
aus Lenaus Faust, the Légendes, the ‘Weinen, Klagen’ Variations (after the death of his
daughter Blandine at the age of twenty-six) and the Trois Odes funèbres (the first of these
after the death of his son at nineteen) were his principal accomplishments as a composer
over the next years. He also wrote more church music, including the delicate Missa
choralis (with organ) and the intriguingly nationalistic Missa coronationalis (with
orchestra), more songs, organ works, shorter piano pieces and transcriptions, and
prepared the definitive edition of his piano solo versions of all nine Beethoven
symphonies. Attempts to marry Carolyne came to nothing, even after the death of her
husband removed all obstacles, real and imagined. He took minor orders in the church,
wore Franciscan robes, was properly called the Abbé Liszt, and came to divide his life into
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