The Eighth Tribe, 1975 (2. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1975-02-01 / 2. szám
Page Twelve THE EIGHTH TRIBE February, 1975 quickly changing rhythms. The rhapsodies were only one of the offenses the great Liszt committed against the musical pedants of his and of later days. These amazing pieces still disturb the purists, still seem to them “exaggerated” in their color and pomp, in the dreamy, caressing quality of the melodies and the frenzy of the finales. But the great public has rightly taken them to heart. Liszt’s technic was not only of his fingers, but his imagination. Color and fantasy characterized everything that he did. He made arrangements of the music of other composers, and as a rule glorified instead of cheapening it in the process. A work which displays very characteristically Liszt’s originality and brilliancy in this field is the fantasy on airs from Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Other pianists developed a style associated with their “school” or peculiar only to themselves. Liszt was a master of all styles. The story is told of an evening at George Sand’s, when Chopin sat at the piano, and the lights were turned out. Chopin, as everyone believed, kept on playing, but when lights were brought it was seen that Liszt had taken his place. Liszt bowed. “Liszt,” he said, “can imitate Chopin, but can Chopin imitate Liszt?” To many today, Liszt’s music remains vulgar and second-rate. To others it is eternally fascinating. It is so much like Liszt the man—always original, always full of ideas, often flawed in character, often with a pseudonobility. It is eternally varied music, from the delicate intimacy of that delicious piano piece Au bord d’une source to the Mephistophelean posturings of the enormous Faust Symphony. With Liszt there is always flesh and the devil on one side, the angelic choir on the other. His works of diabolism are consistently more interesting than his religious works (as has constantly been pointed out, sin is more interesting than virtue). Liszt’s music can be as empty-headed as the Grand galop chromatique, as visionary as the B minor Sonata, as simple as the Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa, as complicated as the Don Juan Fantasy, as muted as II Pensieroso, as glittering as Les Jeux dteaux á la Villa d?Este. It can be nationalistic, as in the often-derided Hungarian Rhapsodies (somebody once pointed out that nobody would have ever objected had Liszt named them Gypsy Rhapsodies), or Bachian, as in the various transcriptions of Bach’s organ music, or saintly, as in the oratorio Christus. Above all there were the new concepts of form and harmony that Liszt brought to music. Béla Bartók, in an essay on Liszt, pointed out certain obvious deficiencies in his music. But, said Bartók, those were not important. “The essence of these works we must find in the new ideas, to which Liszt was the first to give expression, and in the bold pointing toward the future. These things raise Liszt as a composer to the ranks of the great.” Among Liszt’s contributions, Bartók cited: .. . the bold harmonic turns, the innumerable modulatory digressions, such as the juxtaposition, without any transition at all, of the two keys most distant from each other, and to many other points that would require the use of too many technical terms. But all these are mere details. What is more important is the absolutely new imaginative concept that manifests itself in the chief works (the Piano Sonata and the two outer movements of the Faust Symphony, for instance) by reason of which these works rank among the outstanding musical creations of the nineteenth century. Formally, too, though he did not break witli tradition completely, Liszt created much that was new. Thus one finds in him, in the E flat Piano Concerto for instance, the first perfect realization of cyclic sonata form, with common themes treated on variation principles. ... It is humanly very understandable that he did not reject his romantic century, with all its exaggerations. From this comes his own exaggeratedly rhetorical pathos, and no doubt it also explains the concessions he makes to the public, even in his finest works. But whoever picks out only these weaknesses—and there are still some music lovers who do—does not see the essence behind them. When Liszt died, genuine sorrow swept the world, It was not only that the last great link with the days of early romanticism had gone. Liszt, as teacher and composer, as pianist and matinee idol, had been an inspiration—the archromantic, the man who had made his own rules, the exceptional figure who could have his cake and eat it. He was everything his friends and his enemies had always said he was. Look at him one way, and he was a genius. Look at him another, and he was a poseur. But one had to look and make up his own mind. From the moment Liszt broke upon the world, he could not be ignored. * * * Editor’s Note: There are many books written about Liszt. Compiling this short presentation three books were used, courtesy of the Ligonier Valley Library: The Lure of Music by Olin Downes, published by Harper & Bros. 1922; The Lives of Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg, published by W. W. Norton 1970; Liszt by Eleanor Perenyi, published by Little, Brown 1974. We urge you to visit your Public Libraries to read these books and others about Liszt or visit your book stores and purchase them for your own library.
