Franz Liszt Franz Liszt |

Franz Liszt

Without Liszt in the world, the whole fate of new music would be different. V. Stasov

F. Liszt’s composing work is inseparable from all other forms of the varied and most intense activity of this true enthusiast in art. A pianist and conductor, music critic and tireless public figure, he was “greedy and sensitive to everything new, fresh, vital; the enemy of everything conventional, walking, routine” (A. Borodin).

F. Liszt was born in the family of Adam Liszt, a shepherd keeper on the estate of Prince Esterhazy, an amateur musician who directed the first piano lessons of his son, who began to perform publicly at the age of 9, and in 1821-22. studied in Vienna with K. Czerny (piano) and A. Salieri (composition). After successful concerts in Vienna and Pest (1823), A. Liszt took his son to Paris, but foreign origin turned out to be an obstacle to entering the conservatory, and Liszt’s musical education was supplemented by private lessons in composition from F. Paer and A. Reicha. The young virtuoso conquers Paris and London with his performances, composes a lot (the one-act opera Don Sancho, or the Castle of Love, piano pieces).

The death of his father in 1827, which forced Liszt early to take care of his own existence, brought him face to face with the problem of the humiliating position of the artist in society. The young man’s worldview is formed under the influence of the ideas of utopian socialism by A. Saint-Simon, Christian socialism by Abbé F. Lamennay, and French philosophers of the 1830th century. etc. The July Revolution of 1834 in Paris gave rise to the idea of ​​the “Revolutionary Symphony” (remained unfinished), the uprising of the weavers in Lyon (1835) – the piano piece “Lyon” (with an epigraph – the motto of the rebels “To live, work, or die fighting” ). Liszt’s artistic ideals are formed in line with French romanticism, in communication with V. Hugo, O. Balzac, G. Heine, under the influence of the art of N. Paganini, F. Chopin, G. Berlioz. They are formulated in a series of articles “On the position of people of art and on the conditions of their existence in society” (1837) and in “Letters of the Bachelor of Music” (39-1835), written in collaboration with M. d’Agout (later she wrote under the pseudonym Daniel Stern ), with which Liszt undertook a long journey to Switzerland (37-1837), where he taught at the Geneva Conservatory, and to Italy (39-XNUMX).

The “years of wandering” that began in 1835 were continued in intensive tours of numerous breeds of Europe (1839-47). Liszt’s arrival in his native Hungary, where he was honored as a national hero, was a real triumph (the proceeds from the concerts were sent to help those affected by the flood that befell the country). Three times (1842, 1843, 1847) Liszt visited Russia, establishing lifelong friendships with Russian musicians, transcribing the Chernomor March from M. Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, A. Alyabyev’s romance The Nightingale, etc. Numerous transcriptions, fantasies, paraphrases, created by Liszt during these years, reflected not only the tastes of the public, but also were evidence of his musical and educational activities. At Liszt’s piano concertos, the symphonies of L. Beethoven and the “Fantastic Symphony” by G. Berlioz, overtures to “William Tell” by G. Rossini and “The Magic Shooter” by K. M. Weber, songs by F. Schubert, organ preludes and fugues by J. S. Bach, as well as opera paraphrases and fantasies (on themes from Don Giovanni by W. A. ​​Mozart, operas by V. Bellini, G. Donizetti, G. Meyerbeer, and later by G. Verdi), transcriptions of fragments from Wagner operas and etc. The piano in the hands of Liszt becomes a universal instrument capable of recreating all the richness of the sound of opera and symphony scores, the power of the organ and the melodiousness of the human voice.

Meanwhile, the triumphs of the great pianist, who conquered all of Europe with the elemental force of his stormy artistic temperament, brought him less and less true satisfaction. It was increasingly difficult for Liszt to indulge the tastes of the public, for whom his phenomenal virtuosity and outward showiness of performance often obscured the serious intentions of the educator, who sought to “cut fire out of people’s hearts.” Having given a farewell concert in Elizavetgrad in Ukraine in 1847, Liszt moved to Germany, to quiet Weimar, consecrated by the traditions of Bach, Schiller and Goethe, where he held the position of bandmaster at the princely court, directed the orchestra and the opera house.

The Weimar period (1848-61) – the time of “concentration of thought”, as the composer himself called it – is, above all, a period of intense creativity. Liszt completes and reworks many previously created or begun compositions, and implements new ideas. So from the created in the 30s. “Album of the traveler” grows “Years of wanderings” – cycles of piano pieces (year 1 – Switzerland, 1835-54; year 2 – Italy, 1838-49, with the addition of “Venice and Naples”, 1840-59); receive the final finishing Etudes of the highest performing skill (“Etudes of transcendent performance”, 1851); “Large studies on the caprices of Paganini” (1851); “Poetic and Religious Harmonies” (10 pieces for pianoforte, 1852). Continuing work on Hungarian tunes (Hungarian National Melodies for Piano, 1840-43; “Hungarian Rhapsodies”, 1846), Liszt creates 15 “Hungarian Rhapsodies” (1847-53). The implementation of new ideas leads to the emergence of the central works of Liszt, embodying his ideas in new forms – Sonatas in B minor (1852-53), 12 symphonic poems (1847-57), “Faust Symphonies” by Goethe (1854-57) and Symphony to Dante’s Divine Comedy (1856). They are joined by 2 concertos (1849-56 and 1839-61), “Dance of Death” for piano and orchestra (1838-49), “Mephisto-Waltz” (based on “Faust” by N. Lenau, 1860), etc.

In Weimar, Liszt organizes the performance of the best works of opera and symphony classics, the latest compositions. He first staged Lohengrin by R. Wagner, Manfred by J. Byron with music by R. Schumann, conducted symphonies and operas by G. Berlioz, etc. the goal of affirming the new principles of advanced romantic art (the book F. Chopin, 1850; the articles Berlioz and his Harold Symphony, Robert Schumann, R. Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, etc.). The same ideas underlay the organization of the “New Weimar Union” and the “General German Musical Union”, during the creation of which Liszt relied on the support of prominent musicians grouped around him in Weimar (I. Raff, P. Cornelius, K. Tausig, G. Bulow and others).

However, the philistine inertia and the intrigues of the Weimar court, which increasingly hindered the implementation of List’s grandiose plans, forced him to resign. From 1861, Liszt lived for a long time in Rome, where he made an attempt to reform church music, wrote the oratorio “Christ” (1866), and in 1865 received the rank of abbot (partly under the influence of Princess K. Wittgenstein, with whom he became close as early as 1847 G.). Heavy losses also contributed to the mood of disappointment and skepticism – the death of his son Daniel (1860) and daughter Blandina (1862), which continued to grow over the years, a sense of loneliness and misunderstanding of his artistic and social aspirations. They were reflected in a number of later works – the third “Year of Wanderings” (Rome; plays “Cypresses of Villa d’Este”, 1 and 2, 1867-77), piano pieces (“Grey Clouds”, 1881; “Funeral Gondola”, “Czardas death”, 1882), the second (1881) and third (1883) “Mephisto Waltzes”, in the last symphonic poem “From the cradle to the grave” (1882).

However, in the 60s and 80s Liszt devotes a particularly large amount of strength and energy to the building of Hungarian musical culture. He regularly lives in Pest, performs his works there, including those related to national themes (the oratorio The Legend of Saint Elizabeth, 1862; The Hungarian Coronation Mass, 1867, etc.), contributes to the founding of the Academy of Music in Pest ( he was its first president), writes the piano cycle “Hungarian Historical Portraits”, 1870-86), the last “Hungarian Rhapsodies” (16-19), etc. In Weimar, where Liszt returned in 1869, he engaged with numerous students from different countries (A. Siloti, V. Timanova, E. d’Albert, E. Sauer and others). Composers also visit it, in particular Borodin, who left very interesting and vivid memories of Liszt.

Liszt always captured and supported the new and original in art with exceptional sensitivity, contributing to the development of the music of national European schools (Czech, Norwegian, Spanish, etc.), especially highlighting Russian music – the work of M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky, the composers of The Mighty Handful , performing arts A. and N. Rubinsteinov. For many years, Liszt promoted the work of Wagner.

The pianistic genius of Liszt determined the primacy of piano music, where for the first time his artistic ideas took shape, guided by the idea of ​​the need for active spiritual influence on people. The desire to affirm the educational mission of art, to combine all its types for this, to raise music to the level of philosophy and literature, to synthesize in it the depth of philosophical and poetic content with picturesqueness, was embodied in Liszt’s idea of ​​programmability in music. He defined it as “the renewal of music through its internal connection with poetry, as the liberation of artistic content from schematism”, leading to the creation of new genres and forms. Listov’s plays from the Years of Wanderings, embodying images close to works of literature, painting, sculpture, folk legends (sonata-fantasy “After reading Dante”, “Petrarch’s Sonnets”, “Betrothal” based on a painting by Raphael, “The Thinker” based on a sculpture by Michelangelo, “The Chapel of William Tell”, associated with the image of the national hero of Switzerland), or images of nature (“On the Wallenstadt Lake”, “At the Spring”), are musical poems of different scales. Liszt himself introduced this name in relation to his large symphonic one-movement program works. Their titles direct the listener to the poems of A. Lamartine (“Preludes”), V. Hugo (“What is heard on the mountain”, “Mazeppa” – there is also a piano study with the same title), F. Schiller (“Ideals”); to the tragedies of W. Shakespeare (“Hamlet”), J. Herder (“Prometheus”), to the ancient myth (“Orpheus”), the painting by W. Kaulbach (“Battle of the Huns”), the drama of J. W. Goethe (“Tasso” , the poem is close to Byron’s poem “The Complaint of Tasso”).

When choosing sources, Liszt dwells on works that contain consonant ideas of the meaning of life, the mysteries of being (“Preludes”, “Faust Symphony”), the tragic fate of the artist and his posthumous glory (“Tasso”, with the subtitle “Complaint and Triumph”). He is also attracted by the images of the folk element (“Tarantella” from the cycle “Venice and Naples”, “Spanish Rhapsody” for piano), especially in connection with his native Hungary (“Hungarian Rhapsodies”, symphonic poem “Hungary”). The heroic and heroic-tragic theme of the national liberation struggle of the Hungarian people, the revolution of 1848-49, sounded with extraordinary force in Liszt’s work. and her defeats (“Rakoczi March”, “Funeral Procession” for piano; symphonic poem “Lament for Heroes”, etc.).

Liszt went down in the history of music as a bold innovator in the field of musical form, harmony, enriched the sound of the piano and symphony orchestra with new colors, gave interesting examples of solving oratorio genres, a romantic song (“Lorelei” on H. Heine’s art, “Like the Spirit of Laura” on st. V. Hugo, “Three Gypsies” on st. N. Lenau, etc.), organ works. Taking a lot from the cultural traditions of France and Germany, being a national classic of Hungarian music, he had a huge impact on the development of musical culture throughout Europe.

E. Tsareva

• Liszt’s life and creative path →

Liszt is a classic of Hungarian music. Its connections with other national cultures. Creative appearance, social and aesthetic views of Liszt. Programming is the guiding principle of his creativity

Liszt – the greatest composer of the 30th century, a brilliant innovator pianist and conductor, an outstanding musical and public figure – is the national pride of the Hungarian people. But Liszt’s fate turned out to be such that he left his homeland early, spent many years in France and Germany, only occasionally visiting Hungary, and only towards the end of his life lived in it for a long time. This determined the complexity of Liszt’s artistic image, his close ties with French and German culture, from which he took a lot, but to whom he gave a lot with his vigorous creative activity. Neither the history of musical life in Paris in the XNUMXs, nor the history of German music in the middle of the XNUMXth century, would be complete without the name of Liszt. However, he belongs to the Hungarian culture, and his contribution to the history of the development of his native country is enormous.

Liszt himself said that, having spent his youth in France, he used to consider it his homeland: “Here lies the ashes of my father, here, at the sacred grave, my first grief has found its refuge. How could I not feel like a son of a country where I suffered so much and loved so much? How could I imagine that I was born in another country? That other blood flows in my veins, that my loved ones live somewhere else? Having learned in 1838 about the terrible disaster – the flood that befell Hungary, he felt deeply shocked: “These experiences and feelings revealed to me the meaning of the word” motherland “.”

Liszt was proud of his people, his homeland, and constantly emphasized that he was a Hungarian. “Of all living artists,” he said in 1847, “I am the only one who proudly dares to point to his proud homeland. While others vegetated in shallow pools, I was always sailing forward on the full-flowing sea of ​​a great nation. I firmly believe in my guiding star; the purpose of my life is that Hungary may someday proudly point to me.” And he repeats the same a quarter of a century later: “Let me be allowed to admit that, despite my regrettable ignorance of the Hungarian language, I remain a Magyar from cradle to grave in body and soul and, in accordance with this most serious way, I strive to support and develop Hungarian musical culture”.

Throughout his career, Liszt turned to the Hungarian theme. In 1840, he wrote the Heroic March in the Hungarian Style, then the cantata Hungary, the famous Funeral Procession (in honor of the fallen heroes) and, finally, several notebooks of Hungarian National Melodies and Rhapsodies (twenty-one pieces in total) . In the central period – the 1850s, three symphonic poems were created associated with the images of the homeland (“Lament for the Heroes”, “Hungary”, “Battle of the Huns”) and fifteen Hungarian rhapsodies, which are free arrangements of folk tunes. Hungarian themes can also be heard in Liszt’s spiritual works, written especially for Hungary – “Grand Mass”, “Legend of St. Elizabeth”, “Hungarian Coronation Mass”. Even more often he turns to the Hungarian theme in the 70-80s in his songs, piano pieces, arrangements and fantasies on the themes of the works of Hungarian composers.

But these Hungarian works, numerous in themselves (their number reaches one hundred and thirty), are not isolated in Liszt’s work. Other works, especially heroic ones, have common features with them, separate specific turns and similar principles of development. There is no sharp line between the Hungarian and “foreign” works of Liszt – they are written in the same style and enriched with the achievements of European classical and romantic art. That is why Liszt was the first composer to bring Hungarian music to the wide world arena.

However, not only the fate of the motherland worried him.

Even in his youth, he dreamed of giving a musical education to the broadest sections of the people, so that composers would create songs on the model of the Marseillaise and other revolutionary hymns that raised the masses to fight for their liberation. Liszt had a premonition of a popular uprising (he sang it in the piano piece “Lyon”) and urged musicians not to limit themselves to concerts for the benefit of the poor. “For too long in the palaces they looked at them (at the musicians.— M. D.) as court servants and parasites, for too long they glorified the love affairs of the strong and the joys of the rich: the hour has finally come for them to awaken courage in the weak and alleviate the suffering of the oppressed! Art should instill beauty in the people, inspire heroic decisions, awaken humanity, show oneself!” Over the years, this belief in the high ethical role of art in the life of society caused an educational activity on a grandiose scale: Liszt acted as a pianist, conductor, critic – an active propagandist of the best works of the past and present. The same was subordinated to his work as a teacher. And, naturally, with his work, he wanted to establish high artistic ideals. These ideals, however, were not always clearly presented to him.

Liszt is the brightest representative of romanticism in music. Ardent, enthusiastic, emotionally unstable, passionately seeking, he, like other romantic composers, went through many trials: his creative path was complex and contradictory. Liszt lived in difficult times and, like Berlioz and Wagner, did not escape hesitation and doubt, his political views were vague and confused, he was fond of idealistic philosophy, sometimes even sought solace in religion. “Our age is sick, and we are sick with it,” Liszt replied to reproaches for the changeability of his views. But the progressive nature of his work and social activities, the extraordinary moral nobility of his appearance as an artist and a person remained unchanged throughout his long life.

“To be the embodiment of moral purity and humanity, having acquired this at the cost of hardships, painful sacrifices, to serve as a target for ridicule and envy – this is the usual lot of true masters of art,” wrote the twenty-four-year-old Liszt. And that’s how he always was. Intense searches and hard struggle, titanic work and perseverance in overcoming obstacles accompanied him all his life.

Thoughts about the high social purpose of music inspired Liszt’s work. He strove to make his works accessible to the widest range of listeners, and this explains his stubborn attraction to programming. Back in 1837, Liszt succinctly substantiates the need for programming in music and the basic principles that he will adhere to throughout his work: “For some artists, their work is their life … Especially a musician who is inspired by nature, but does not copy it , expresses in sounds the innermost secrets of his destiny. He thinks in them, embodies feelings, speaks, but his language is more arbitrary and indefinite than any other, and, like beautiful golden clouds that take on at sunset any form given to them by the fantasy of a lonely wanderer, it lends itself too easily to the most varied interpretations. Therefore, it is by no means useless and in any case not funny – as they often like to say – if a composer outlines a sketch of his work in a few lines and, without falling into petty details and details, expresses the idea that served him as the basis for the composition. Then criticism will be free to praise or blame the more or less successful embodiment of this idea.

Liszt’s turn to programming was a progressive phenomenon, due to the whole direction of his creative aspirations. Liszt wanted to speak through his art not with a narrow circle of connoisseurs, but with the masses of listeners, to excite millions of people with his music. True, Liszt’s programming is contradictory: in an effort to embody great thoughts and feelings, he often fell into abstraction, into vague philosophizing, and thereby involuntarily limited the scope of his works. But the best of them overcome this abstract uncertainty and vagueness of the program: the musical images created by Liszt are concrete, intelligible, the themes are expressive and embossed, the form is clear.

Based on the principles of programming, asserting the ideological content of art with his creative activity, Liszt unusually enriched the expressive resources of music, chronologically ahead of even Wagner in this respect. With his colorful finds, Liszt expanded the scope of melody; at the same time, he can rightfully be considered one of the most daring innovators of the XNUMXth century in the field of harmony. Liszt is also the creator of a new genre of “symphonic poem” and a method of musical development called “monothematism”. Finally, his achievements in the field of piano technique and texture are especially significant, for Liszt was a brilliant pianist, the equal of whom history has not known.

The musical legacy he left behind is enormous, but not all works are equal. The leading areas in Liszt’s work are the piano and symphony – here his innovative ideological and artistic aspirations were in full force. Of undoubted value are Liszt’s vocal compositions, among which songs stand out; he showed little interest in opera and chamber instrumental music.

Themes, images of Liszt’s creativity. Its significance in the history of Hungarian and world musical art

Liszt’s musical legacy is rich and varied. He lived by the interests of his time and strove to respond creatively to the actual demands of reality. Hence the heroic warehouse of music, its inherent drama, fiery energy, sublime pathos. The traits of idealism inherent in Liszt’s worldview, however, affected a number of works, giving rise to a certain indefiniteness of expression, vagueness or abstractness of content. But in his best works these negative moments are overcome – in them, to use Cui’s expression, “genuine life boils.”

Liszt’s sharply individual style melted many creative influences. The heroism and powerful drama of Beethoven, along with the violent romanticism and colorfulness of Berlioz, the demonism and brilliant virtuosity of Paganini, had a decisive influence on the formation of artistic tastes and aesthetic views of the young Liszt. His further creative evolution proceeded under the sign of romanticism. The composer avidly absorbed life, literary, artistic and actually musical impressions.

An unusual biography contributed to the fact that various national traditions were combined in Liszt’s music. From the French romantic school, he took bright contrasts in the juxtaposition of images, their picturesqueness; from Italian opera music of the XNUMXth century (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi) – emotional passion and sensual bliss of cantilena, intense vocal recitation; from the German school – the deepening and expansion of the means of expressiveness of harmony, experimentation in the field of form. It must be added to what has been said that in the mature period of his work, List also experienced the influence of young national schools, primarily Russian, whose achievements he studied with close attention.

All this was organically fused in the artistic style of Liszt, which is inherent in the national-Hungarian structure of music. It has certain spheres of images; Among them, five main groups can be distinguished:

1) The heroic images of a brightly major, invocative character are marked by great originality. They are characterized by a proudly chivalrous warehouse, brilliance and brilliance of presentation, light sound of copper. Elastic melody, dotted rhythm is “organized” by a marching gait. This is how a brave hero appears in Liszt’s mind, fighting for happiness and freedom. The musical origins of these images are in the heroic themes of Beethoven, partly Weber, but most importantly, it is here, in this area, that the influence of the Hungarian national melody is most clearly seen.

Among the images of solemn processions, there are also more improvisational, minor themes, perceived as a story or a ballad about the glorious past of the country. The juxtaposition of minor – parallel major and the widespread use of melismatics emphasize the richness of sound and variety of color.

2) Tragic images are a kind of parallel to the heroic ones. Such are Liszt’s favorite mourning processions or lamentation songs (the so-called “trenody”), whose music is inspired by the tragic events of the people’s liberation struggle in Hungary or the death of its major political and public figures. The marching rhythm here becomes sharper, becomes more nervous, jerky, and often instead of

there

or

(for example, the second theme from the first movement of the Second Piano Concerto). We recall Beethoven’s funeral marches and their prototypes in the music of the French Revolution at the end of the XNUMXth century (see, for example, Gossek’s famous Funeral March). But Liszt is dominated by the sound of trombones, deep, “low” basses, funeral bells. As the Hungarian musicologist Bence Szabolczy notes, “these works tremble with a gloomy passion, which we find only in the last poems of Vörösmarty and in the last paintings of the painter Laszlo Paal.”

The national-Hungarian origins of such images are indisputable. To see this, it is enough to refer to the orchestral poem “Lament for the Heroes” (“Heroi’de funebre”, 1854) or the popular piano piece “The Funeral Procession” (“Funerailles”, 1849). Already the first, slowly unfolding theme of the “Funeral Procession” contains a characteristic turn of an enlarged second, which gives a special gloom to the funeral march. The astringency of the sound (harmonic major) is preserved in the subsequent mournful lyrical cantilena. And, as often with Liszt, mourning images are transformed into heroic ones – to a powerful popular movement, to a new struggle, the death of a national hero is calling.

3) Another emotional and semantic sphere is associated with images that convey feelings of doubt, an anxious state of mind. This complex set of thoughts and feelings among the romantics was associated with the idea of ​​Goethe’s Faust (compare with Berlioz, Wagner) or Byron’s Manfred (compare with Schumann, Tchaikovsky). Shakespeare’s Hamlet was often included in the circle of these images (compare with Tchaikovsky, with Liszt’s own poem). The embodiment of such images required new expressive means, especially in the field of harmony: Liszt often uses increased and decreased intervals, chromatisms, even out-of-tonal harmonies, quart combinations, bold modulations. “Some kind of feverish, agonizing impatience burns in this world of harmony,” Sabolci points out. These are the opening phrases of both piano sonatas or the Faust Symphony.

4) Often means of expression close in meaning are used in the figurative sphere where mockery and sarcasm predominate, the spirit of denial and destruction is conveyed. That “satanic” that was outlined by Berlioz in the “Sabbath of Witches” from the “Fantastic Symphony” acquires an even more spontaneously irresistible character in Liszt. This is the personification of the images of evil. The genre basis – dance – now appears in a distorted light, with sharp accents, in dissonant consonances, emphasized by grace notes. The most obvious example of this is the three Mephisto Waltzes, the finale of the Faust Symphony.

5) The sheet also expressively captured a wide range of love feelings: intoxication with passion, an ecstatic impulse or dreamy bliss, languor. Now it is a tense breathing cantilena in the spirit of Italian operas, now an oratorically excited recitation, now an exquisite languor of “Tristan” harmonies, abundantly supplied with alterations and chromaticism.

Of course, there are no clear demarcations between the marked figurative spheres. Heroic themes are close to tragic, “Faustian” motifs are often transformed into “Mephistopheles”, and “erotic” themes include both noble and sublime feelings and the temptations of “satanic” seduction. In addition, Liszt’s expressive palette is not exhausted by this: in the “Hungarian Rhapsodies” folklore-genre dance images predominate, in the “Years of Wanderings” there are many landscape sketches, in etudes (or concerts) there are scherzo fantastic visions. Nevertheless, List’s achievements in these areas are the most original. It was they who had a strong influence on the work of the next generations of composers.

* * *

During the heyday of List’s activity – in the 50-60s – his influence was limited to a narrow circle of students and friends. Over the years, however, Liszt’s pioneering achievements were increasingly recognized.

Naturally, first of all, their influence affected piano performance and creativity. Willingly or involuntarily, everyone who turned to the piano could not pass by Liszt’s gigantic conquests in this area, which was reflected both in the interpretation of the instrument and in the texture of the compositions. Over time, Liszt’s ideological and artistic principles gained recognition in composer practice, and they were assimilated by representatives of various national schools.

The generalized principle of programming, put forward by Liszt as a counterbalance to Berlioz, who is more characteristic of the pictorial-“theatrical” interpretation of the chosen plot, has become widespread. In particular, Liszt’s principles were more widely used by Russian composers, especially Tchaikovsky, than Berlioz’s (although the latter were not missed, for example, by Mussorgsky in Night on Bald Mountain or Rimsky-Korsakov in Scheherazade).

The genre of the program symphonic poem has become equally widespread, the artistic possibilities of which composers have been developing up to the present day. Immediately after Liszt, symphonic poems were written in France by Saint-Saens and Franck; in the Czech Republic – Sour cream; in Germany, R. Strauss achieved the highest achievements in this genre. True, such works were far from always based on monothematism. The principles of the development of a symphonic poem in combination with a sonata allegro were often interpreted differently, more freely. However, the monothematic principle – in its freer interpretation – was nevertheless used, moreover, in non-programmed compositions (“the cyclic principle” in the symphony and chamber-instrumental works of Frank, Taneyev’s c-moll symphony and others). Finally, subsequent composers often turned to the poetic type of Liszt’s piano concerto (see Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto, Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, Glazunov’s Second Piano Concerto, and others).

Not only the compositional principles of Liszt were developed, but also the figurative spheres of his music, especially the heroic, “Faustian”, “Mephistopheles”. Let us recall, for example, the proud “themes of self-assertion” in Scriabin’s symphonies. As for the denunciation of evil in “Mephistophelian” images, as if distorted by mockery, sustained in the spirit of frantic “dances of death”, their further development is found even in the music of our time (see the works of Shostakovich). The theme of “Faustian” doubts, “devilish” seductions is also widespread. These various spheres are fully reflected in the work of R. Strauss.

The colorful musical language of Liszt, rich in subtle nuances, also received significant development. In particular, the brilliance of his harmonies served as the basis for the quest of the French Impressionists: without the artistic achievements of Liszt, neither Debussy nor Ravel is inconceivable (the latter, in addition, widely used the achievements of Liszt’s pianism in his works).

Liszt’s “insights” of the late period of creativity in the field of harmony were supported and stimulated by his growing interest in young national schools. It was among them – and above all among the Kuchkists – that Liszt found opportunities for enriching the musical language with new modal, melodic and rhythmic turns.

M. Druskin

• Liszt’s piano works →
• Symphonic works of Liszt →

• Liszt’s vocal work →

• List of Liszt’s works →