PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

A
LTHOUGH ALL OF THE PIECES RECORDED HERE
come from Liszt’s later period, and whilst most of
them use the piano in a very restrained way,
there could scarcely be a greater contrast in atmosphere
between the Christmas Tree suite and the sombre Stations
of the Cross. Of course there is the obvious contrast
between the birth and the death of Jesus, but Liszt moves
to the extremes of musical expression between almost
secular lighthearted gaiety in some of the Christmas pieces
to a relentless sense of horror and distress in the
Passiontide pieces.
The Christmas Tree suite occupied Liszt for quite
some time—he was determined to make an especially
good job of it to present to his granddaughter Daniela
(daughter of Hans von Bülow and Cosima) to whom the
set is dedicated—and he also made a charming arrangement
of it for piano duet. The bulk of the work was carried
out between 1874 and 1876, although Liszt kept touching
the pieces up until the time of publication. The first four
numbers are marked ‘piano ossia armonium’, and are
nowadays additionally included with Liszt’s organ music.
The whole work is arranged in three groups of four pieces
which, broadly, present traditional carol melodies, a
child’s view of Christmas, and a maturer person’s
recollections.
Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) composed the choral
work which provides the theme for Psallite, or, at least, the
central section—Liszt provides a formal march-like
introduction and coda, setting a processional air. O Heilige
Nacht! is based on an old carol, and Liszt also produced a
version of the piece for choir and organ. The melody of Die
Hirten … is known to practically everyone, but Liszt’s
delicate left-hand pastoral dactyls are one of his happiest
inspirations. His treatment of what all English-speaking
people will immediately recognize as O come, all ye
faithful as a march for the three kings (which has no
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connection with the eponymous march in Liszt’s oratorio
Christus) allows him to introduce some rather dramatic
extensions to the well-known tune.
The fifth piece is one of very few scherzi that Liszt
wrote—full of humour, and treacherously difficult as
children’s pieces go! The double notes of Carillon—the
first of two bell-pieces—are similarly unnerving, as is the
unresolved ending. The seventh piece is worlds away from
Liszt’s independent Berceuse. Here, a very simple melodic
fragment with a rippling accompaniment makes several
dreamlike excursions into strange harmonic territory
before it drifts off into sleep. No 8 actually includes two old
French carols, and makes another rather sophisticated
little scherzo which leads us to the adult world of the last
pieces.
The bells of the ninth piece invoke quiet recollection
and, according to Humphrey Searle, the tenth piece—at
once wistful and impassioned—is a nostalgic remembrance
of the first meeting between Liszt and the Princess
zu Sayn-Wittgenstein; the eleventh—a stirring march—a
self-portrait, and the twelfth—an exuberant mazurka—a
portrait of the Polish Princess. This may be so, although
the present writer can find no primary source for Searle’s
idea. It should be observed, though, that the Hungarian
piece bears an extra dedication to Liszt’s friend, the
composer Kornél Ábrányi, and that the extrovert gaiety of
the final number belies everything that one has otherwise
been lead to believe of the character of the Princess, who
smoked cigars, wrote interminable tomes on obscure
church problems, and probably never danced a step!
The little Weihnachtslied is included as a postscript:
Liszt made two different settings of the words of this carol,
and one of those he produced in three different choral
versions as well as the piano version recorded here.
Liszt’s late masterpiece Via Crucis exists in versions
for choir and organ, for choir and piano, for organ solo, for