Interesting Music Story: 3. Les préludes, Franz Liszt

 

 

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The third selected music is “Les préludes” by Franz Liszt.

“Les préludes” is the third of Franz Liszt's thirteen symphonic poems. It was composed between 1845 and 1854, and created as an overture to Liszt's choral cycle “Les quatre élémens”, then revised as an independent concert overture, with a new title referencing a poem by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine. Liszt conducted the work's premiere on February 23, 1854, and the score was published in 1856 by Breitkopf & Härtel, the world's oldest music publisher.

Alphonse de Lamartine

Liszt's "Les préludes" is the earliest example of an orchestral work titled "Symphonic Poem" and the final revision of an overture initially composed for a choral cycle "Les quatre élémens", based on four poems by the French poet Joseph Autran: La Terre (The Earth), Les Aquilons (The north Winds), Les Flots (The Waves), Les Astres (The Stars).

Among them, chorus “Les Aquilons” was composed in Marseille in 1844 in a version for male chorus with accompaniment for two pianos, and the first sketches for the overture of “Les quatre élémens” was made in 1845, when Liszt traveled to Spain and Portugal.

However, after the partly orchestral parts had been composed, the choral cycle project was abandoned, and the overture was revised as an independent work in 1853-54 with a new title inspired by an ode "Les préludes" by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine.

“Les préludes” is written for a large orchestra consisting of strings, woodwind, brass, harp, and various percussion instruments. To realize the orchestration, Liszt was helped successively by two composers, first the Swiss composer Joachim Raff for the score in 1849-50, and then Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff for the revision in 1853-54, and then for minor revisions before being published in Breitkopf & Härtel in 1856.

Joachim Raff

However, the work was challenged decades after the composer’s death by the dark history that the composer himself never intended in his work. Its history was an association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi, and Liszt's "Les préludes" was banned from public performance after the war because it was used for Nazi propaganda when announcing their victories during World War II.

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99. Classical Music: 14. Franz Liszt, ACJ Music Academy

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This week's lecture is “Franz Liszt”, the 14th topic of “Classical Music”, which is a summary of the contents of “99. Classical Music: 14. Franz Liszt” introduced on August 19th, 2017.

Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger and organist of the Romantic era, born on 22 October 1811 and died on 31 July 1886.

Liszt was born in Raiding, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire, the son of Anna Liszt and Adam Liszt. His father, who played the piano, violin, cello and guitar, served Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy and was personally acquainted with Haydn, Hummel, and Beethoven. 

Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy

He began listening attentively to his father's piano playing at the age of six and was exposed to music through attending mass as well as traveling Romani bands that toured the Hungarian countryside. His father began teaching him the piano when he was seven, and Liszt began composing in an elementary manner when he was eight. In 1820, at the age of nine, he appeared in concerts at Sopron and Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), after which wealthy patrons offered to finance his musical education in Vienna.

One of Franz Liszt's pianos, Budapest

There, Liszt received piano lessons from Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven and Hummel, when he was a young man, and composition lessons from Ferdinando Paer and Antonio Salieri, who was then the music director of the Viennese court. Liszt's public debut concert in Vienna on December 1, 1822 was a huge success.

Carl Czerny

On July 2, 1881, Liszt fell down the stairs of a hotel in Weimar, Germany. His friends and colleagues noticed that Liszt had swollen feet and legs when he had arrived in Weimar the previous month, but he was still healthy and active by then. 

Franz Liszt Fantasizing at the Piano, Josef Danhauser (1840)

However, after the accident, he was left immobilized for eight weeks and never fully recovered from the accident. A number of ailments such as dropsy, asthma, insomnia, a cataract in the left eye, and heart disease manifested, and he died of pneumonia at the age of 74. 

It has been suggested that the pneumonia that caused his death may have been infected during the Bayreuth Festival hosted by his daughter Cosima, as well as medical malpractice as part of his cause of death. He was buried in the Bayreuth Municipal Cemetery on August 3, 1886.

Grave of Franz Liszt, Bayreuth

His old friend, composer Camille Saint-Saëns, whom Liszt once called "the greatest organist in the world", dedicated his third symphony, "The Organ Symphony," to Liszt, which had premiered in London only a few weeks before his death.

Camille Saint-Saëns

Liszt gained a great reputation in Europe as a pianist who demonstrated remarkable virtuosity in the early 19th century. He was a friend, music promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.

Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest

A prolific composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representative musicians of the New German School. He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work that influenced his forward-looking contemporary musicians and predicted 20th-century ideas and trends. 

Among Liszt's musical contributions are the symphonic poem that developed thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony.

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97. Classical Music: 12. Frédéric Chopin, ACJ Music Academy

 

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This week's lecture is “Frédéric Chopin”, the 12th topic of “Classical Music”, which is a summary of the contents of “97. Classical Music: 12. Frédéric Chopin” introduced on July 22nd, 2017.

Chopin, daguerreotype by Louis-Auguste
Bisson (c.1849)

Frédéric Chopin, born on March 1, 1810 and died on October 17, 1849, was a Polish composer and pianist of the Romantic era who wrote mainly for solo piano. He was born in Zelazowa Wola and grew up in Warsaw.

Chopin's birthplace, Żelazowa Wola

His father, Nicolas Chopin, was a Frenchman from Lorraine, France, who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of 16, and married Justyna Krzyżanowska of the Skarbeks. Chopin was the second child and only son of Nicholas and Justyna, and he had an elder sister, Ludwika, and two younger sisters, Izabela and Emilia.

Chopin's father, Nicolas Chopin,
Ambroży Mieroszewski (1829)

A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his early works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising, an armed rebellion in the Poland against the Russian Empire. 

Taking of the Warsaw Arsenal, November Uprising, Marcin
Zaleski

After settling in Paris at the age of 21, he gave only 30 public concerts during the last 18 years of his life, preferring the salon's intimate atmosphere. Chopin became friends with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his contemporary musicians, including Robert Schumann.

Franz Liszt, Josef Kriehuber (1838)

After breaking his engagement with Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained a relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin, whose pen name was George Sand. A brief and unhappy trip to Mallorca with Sand in 1838-39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. 

Self-portrait, Maria Wodzińska (1830s)

Chopin at 25, Maria Wodzińska (1835)

Portrait of George Sand, Thomas Sully
(1826)

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, Eugène
Delacroix (1838)

In his final years, he received financial support from his admirer Jane Stirling, who arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. 

Jane Stirling, Achille Devéria (c.1830)

After poor health throughout his life, Chopin died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39, and the cause of his death appeared to have been pericarditis aggravated by tuberculosis. 

Chopin on His Deathbed, Teofil Kwiatkowski (1849)

Chopin's death mask, Auguste Clésinger

His funeral, delayed almost two weeks after his death, was held on 30 October at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, where Mozart's Requiem was sung and the Funeral March from Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 was played in the cemetery. Following his will, his elder sister Ludwika took his heart to Poland in 1850.

Chopin's grave, Père-Lachaise cemetery,
Paris

Funerary monument on a pillar in Holy
Cross Church, Warsaw, enclosing Chopin's
heart

All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most of them are for solo piano, but he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and Polish songs with Polish lyrics.

Chopin's last (Pleyel) piano

His piano works were technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument, and his performances were known for their high sensitivity. His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade, études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes, and sonatas, some of which were published only posthumously.

Frédéric Chopin Monument, Łazienki Park,
Warsaw

What influenced his compositional style were Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert, and the atmosphere of the Paris salons where he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, harmony, and musical form, as well as his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.

Chopin plays for the Radziwiłłs, 1829, Henryk Siemiradzki
(1887)

His works remain very popular, and numerous films and biographies have been made about his life and music. Among his many memorials is the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, established by the Parliament of Poland to research and promote his life and works, which hosts the International Chopin Piano Competition, dedicated solely to his works.

Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw

3rd Chopin Competition (1937)

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