Album insights
Few composers evoke such mixed feelings as Franz Liszt. In 1934, two biographies shed light on the contrasting aspects of Liszt's life: Ernest Newman's book "The Man Liszt" depicted the composer's life as "the tragicomedy of a soul in conflict with itself," while Sacheverell Sitwell's atmospheric yet factually unreliable book presented an eloquent rebuttal in defense of Liszt. Recent research, a more open acceptance of the strengths and limitations of Liszt's art, and expanded knowledge of his diverse body of work have helped dispel some doubts arising from his music. For a significant portion of the past century, Liszt was viewed as a marginal figure in 19th-century music, a charlatan who approached his compositions more superficially than from within, camouflaging himself in various masks to cater to his audience, later evolving into an eccentric increasingly disillusioned, always composing with an eye towards posthumous fame. The main accusation was that Liszt had been insincere, which is the central focus of Newman's thesis. However, despite Liszt becoming increasingly isolated in his later years, mainly due to personal tragedies and professional setbacks, he is now considered one of the most important composers, perhaps even the central figure of musical Romanticism.
Liszt's life spanned the 19th century from the time of Beethoven's Piano Concerto op. 73 to Stravinsky's youth; he was a man of unparalleled energy and innovation who created a vast and poetically diverse body of work. With such an immense array of works, the quality naturally fluctuates; it is no surprise that a composer who delved into the realm of artistic exploration at times produced works where the experimental nature overshadowed artistic achievement. He was also a composer who was considered the most charismatic interpreter of his generation, and many of his early works emerged as showcases of his own virtuosity. When viewed independently of his captivating stage presence, they may lose much of their communicative power and persuasiveness, with bold originality easily veering into rhetorical bombast. Liszt's effects relied to an unusually high degree on instrumental and tonal peculiarities: Few composers were as reliant on their performers, and few were as often let down by them. When Liszt composed for the piano—even after ending his concert career at the age of thirty-five—he essentially wrote for himself.
Between 1839, when he embarked on a series of concerts to raise funds for the Beethoven monument in Bonn, and 1847, when he toured Transylvania, Liszt undertook what is perhaps the most fantastical and spectacular concert tour in music history. Across Europe, he performed to packed halls of three thousand or more attendees, presenting a wide spectrum of piano literature then in existence and showcasing to the audience many significant orchestral works through his sensational piano arrangements. He incited such frenzied adulation that Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania" for it. Then, in September 1847, he stopped. After his final performance in Elisavetgradka, he moved to Weimar, where in February 1848 he accepted the position of court Kapellmeister offered by the Grand Duke. He played piano in public only occasionally thereafter, and never again for a fee. His decision was incomprehensible to the music-loving public. His erratic lifestyle with constant travels (before the age of railroads) was naturally exhausting, and the pressure to give a hundred and fifty concerts per year while also creating new works and arrangements for his adoring audience was immensely challenging. But if ever a musician (at least in the eyes of his contemporary audience) seemed unsuitable for the demands and constraints of a court position, it was surely Liszt.
In hindsight, Liszt's decision seems completely justified. Although his time in Weimar ended in disappointment (he left in 1859 after losing the support of both his employer and his audience), the 1850s were among his most productive years—many of his best works were created during that period. He arrived in Weimar with suitcases full of manuscripts and meticulously revised many of his early works (including the Études d'exécution transcendante and the first two volumes of the Années de pèlerinage, which are mainstays of the Liszt repertoire). And certainly, a work like the Piano Sonata could never have been composed during his years as a touring virtuoso.
The Piano Sonata in B minor is generally considered Liszt's most significant piano work and one of the most important contributions to the genre of the piano sonata after Beethoven. Alan Walker asserts, "If Liszt had written nothing else, he would still be counted among the masters solely on the basis of this work." Although sketches for parts of the Sonata dated back to earlier years, the piece was fully developed over a relatively short period from late 1852 to early 1853 (according to Liszt's inscription, he completed the manuscript on February 2, 1853). Liszt dedicated it to Robert Schumann, in return for Schumann's dedication of his Fantasie in C major to Liszt in 1839.
The sonata builds upon a small number of imaginative thematic elements that, when developed, reworked, and arranged in different ways, underpin both the melodic foreground and the structural framework in the background. The first thematic element—in the form of tonally ambiguous, modally derived descending scales that open the sonata—serves as a guide through the dramatic structure, akin to a curtain between the acts of a play. Two other main ideas are also presented on the first page: firstly, a declamation leaping by octaves ("Allegro energico"), and secondly, a Mephistophelian gesture characterized by repeated notes. The way Liszt develops and combines these notions lies at the core of the strength and coherence of the work: the dramatic reshaping of the thematic base material, made possible by Liszt's unique sense of instrumental texture and his unprecedented elevation of piano sound to the status of a structural element, forms the lifeblood of the sonata. Liszt's ingenious musical characterization and emphasis on their transformation and contrasting through a process of thematic metamorphosis compelled him to create new formal structures to present his musical arguments. "New wine needs new bottles," Liszt said, but he may have received more acclaim for the bottles than for the wine. While Liszt's formal innovations are indeed important, his most enduring influence stems from his renewal of the musical language.
After a lengthy transitional passage and a more agitated exposition of the descending scale from the beginning, we reach a grandioso theme that functions as a second theme in the parallel key of D major. Here, Liszt introduces a motif of three notes (rising by a tone, then by a minor third), identical to the first three notes of the chorale "Vexilla Regis prodeunt." This idea is known as Liszt's "cross motif" and can also be found in some of his religious works, such as the oratorio "The Legend of Saint Elizabeth," the "Graner" Mass, and the "Via Crucis." Although many interpreters reject this notion, it has been suggested that the presence of this motif adds a religious dimension to the sonata, and this is just one of many attempts to load the work with extramusical associations. The most common interpretation is that Liszt intended a musical depiction of Goethe's Faust, with different leitmotifs for Faust, Gretchen, and Mephisto—this view was considered proven by Liszt's spiritual grandson Claudio Arrau among Liszt's students. However, unusually for a composer who otherwise eschewed pure genre titles and believed that revealing the extramusical stimuli provided a deeper insight into a work's intentions, Liszt remained silent on the B minor Sonata, making the piece even more profound through the variety of interpretative explanations.
The fascination of the sonata lies in how it unfolds two layers of structure simultaneously. Like Schubert in his "Wanderer Fantasy" (a piece Liszt was familiar with, as he arranged it for piano and orchestra in 1851), Liszt, within the single extended movement of the sonata, refers to the traditional four-movement structure. The "Andante sostenuto" and the "Quasi Adagio" fulfil the dual role of a slow movement and development, with the subsequent fugato serving as a third movement or scherzo and a continued development (contrapuntal condensation being a common developmental technique), seamlessly transitioning into the recapitulation or finale when returning to B minor (measure 533). After the extraordinarily virtuosic "Prestissimo" climax and a haunting pause, one of the most refined passages in all piano literature follows. Notably, Liszt struggled to provide impressive conclusions for some of his most extravagant works (the paraphrases on Don Juan and Norma have particularly ineffective endings), and he initially wrote a loud ending for the sonata; the quiet, almost benedictory epilogue that beautifully reunites the main themes was a stroke of genius in hindsight.
After Chopin's death in 1849, Liszt composed some works in genres inseparably linked to the great Polish composer. Though Chopin's death may have served as inspiration for paying homage in those genres closely associated with Chopin's masterworks, the timing was partly coincidental. As we have seen, Liszt ended his career as a touring virtuoso shortly before Chopin's death, and upon settling in Weimar, he began exploring numerous new compositional approaches. Furthermore, at that time, his new companion was Princess Carolyne von Sayn