Après une Lecture de Liszt: Virtuosity and ... - Free

19THCENTURYMUSICformal coherence ascribes the unity of a performancenot to the origin of the performance (atext or a sketch) but to its destination. Thelistener qua destination becomes a space inwhich a dazzling multiplicity of rhetorical effectscan condense into a “work.” But such awork remains a text without an inscription,irrespective of whether the improvising performer(after Czerny) or the able listener (afterGollmick) is held to be the agent of cohesion. 46With its implicit emphasis on destination,Czerny’s textbook definition expounds a synonymybetween “Fantasieren,” “Improvisieren,”and “Extemporieren,” although the lattertwo terms are largely dropped for the remainderof the treatise. 47 While Czerny explainsmethods practicing improvisation in differentstyles, with different types and numbers ofthemes, and even with different audiences inmind, he offers no discussion of formal organizationexcept as it is determined by the themesand their strategically varied appearances. Inother words, Czerny’s emphasis is on the thematicinvention of the moment rather than onany premeditated design. Of course, this resultedin formal organization of a kind, although“in a much freer form than a written work,” forCzerny emphasized the listener qua destinationby insisting that an improvisation “mustbe fashioned into an organized totality [only] asfar as is necessary to remain comprehensibleand interesting.” 48In two separate critiques of Czerny’s treatise,Hamburg’s Blätter für Musik und Literaturquestioned whether a “systematic” approachto improvisation might render a free Fantasy“only a piece [Musikstück] falling under the46The model for shifting the locus of meaning from originto destination comes from Barthes, “The Death of theAuthor,” which empowers the agency of the reader postmortem. Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” p. 148.47Like Czerny, Hummel appears to regard “Phantasiren”and “Extemporiren” as synonymous in his Clavierschule;although he uses the term “Phantasiren” only in the text,the title of his seventh chapter from volume 3 is given as:“Vom freien Phantasiren. (Extemporiren).” See Hummel,Ausführliche theoretisch-practische Anweisung zumPiano-Forte-Spiel, vol. 3 (Vienna: Tobias Haslinger, 1828),p. 444.48“Obschon in viel freyeren Formen, als eine geschriebene,doch in soweit ein geordnetes Ganzes bilden muss, alsnöting ist, um verständlich und interessant zu bleiben”(Czerny, Systematische Anleitung, p. 3 [Michell, p. 1]).hands ex tempore.” 49 Similarly an anonymousViennese critic drew a distinction betweenImprovisieren/Extemporieren, and Phantasieren,arguing that the terms should differentiatethe levels of formal coherence in an improvisation.Whereas Phantasieren was essentially unboundfrom prior conceptions of form, the othertwo expressions: “connote simply the fusion ofinvention and formal realization”—that is, theyrelate to recognizably “composed” forms: “Onecan improvise a regular sonata, an overture, astrict fugue etc. This, however, cannot be calleda “Fantasie” by any means.” 50A review of Liszt’s earliest public improvisation—datingfrom his tutelage under Czerny—records a similar differentiation. The elevenyear-old’sViennese debut took place on 1 December1822, and his concluding “free fantasy”performance at this concert elicited a correctivein the Allgemeine Zeitung: “We shouldprefer to call the fantasy a ‘capriccio,’ for severalthemes united by voluntary passages donot deserve that magnificent title, too often49“Und die freie Phantasie ist jetzt nur ein unter denHänden gesetztes Musikstück ex tempore” (Christern,“Vom musikalischen Phantasie,” Blätter für Musik undLiteratur 4 [Oct. 1840], 21–22, here 21).50The full comment reads: “We regard the expressionsFantasieren, and subsequently Improvisieren andExtemporieren, however, not quite as synonymous as theauthor suggests, rather we hold that the latter two expressionsconnote simply the fusion of invention and formalrealization, whereas in the concept of ‘Fantasie’ the powersof the imagination predominate over form so that, inthe latter, the artist immediately lends form to ideas whichhis mood, enthusiasm and inventiveness have just inspired,and he only follows formal requirements in so far as theyare essential for an artistic creation. One can improvise aregular sonata, an overture, a strict fugue etc. This, however,cannot be called a ‘Fantasie’ by any means.” (Wirhalten die Ausdrücke Fantasieren, dann Improvisieren undExtemporieren jedoch nicht so ganz gleichbedeutend, wiediess der Verfasser [Czerny] andeutet, sondern glauben,daß die beiden letzen Ausdrücke nur das gleichzeitigeZusammentreffen der Erfindung mit der Ausführungbezeichnen, daß aber im Begriffe der Fantasie auch dasVorherrschen der Einbildungskraft über die Form liegt, so,daß in der letzteren der Künstler Ideen, welche seine Laune,Begeisterung, und Erfindungsgabe ihm eben eingibt,sogleich ausführet, und die Formen nur soweit beachten,als sie zu einer Kunstleistung unerläßlich, sind. Man kanneine regelmäßige Sonate, eine Overtüre, eine strenge Fugeu.s.w. improvisieren. Allein diess nennt man noch keineFantasie.) (“Über die systematische Anleitung zumPhantasieren auf dem Pianoforte con Carl Czerny,” Monatberichtder Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde des ÖsterreichischenKaiserstaates [1830]).64