Liszt was born in 1811, one year after the birth of Robert Schumann and Frederic Chopin. This is the reason why very often we see three of them show up in the same movie. Liszt was born in Hungary with German ancestry. He was a child prodigy in his early life. He appeared in concerts at age 9. After the concerts, a group of wealthy sponsors offered to finance Franz's musical education abroad. He was a terrific piano virtuoso & considered perhaps the greatest pianist in history. His greatest contribution is the creation of Symphonic Poem. Haydn composed 104 symphonies & earned titles of "Father of Symphony" & "PaPa Haydn". The Haydn's symphony is a form of four movements. It always begins with an Introduction lasted about 2 minutes & followed with a main theme. The 2nd movement is always slow & the 3rd movement is always a Minuet (小步舞曲). The 4th movement is usually fast & lively. Later composers followed this format closely with some adjustment as needed. For example, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony has five movements, Mozart's Prague Symphony has three movements & Schubert's symphony #8 has only two movements as it is "Unfinished". Beethoven very often replaced Minuet with Scherzo (詼諧曲). However, Liszt was the one who collapsed the four movements into one & called it Symphonic Poem (交响詩). He created a new form that he could combine literature, painting & music in one pot. The new style enabled him to express the feeling & emotion much more freely. He composed twelve Symphonic Poems. The most famous one is the #3, "Les Preludes (前奏曲)". It is based on Ode of Alphonse de Lamartine's Nouvelles meditations poetiques (拉馬丁的'詩的沈思錄').
Liszt was one of the most generous composers in the 19th century. He had the look & talent that attracted a lot of women. He was successful in career early enough that free him from insecurity, anxiety & jealousy of others. He gave helps to Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Berlioz & even Wagner. The following is a legendary story. Liszt once traveled to a little town near Budapest. He checked in a tavern & saw one notice in the lobby. It stated "A Piano Concert will be performed this evening at 8 pm by XXX (female name), a student of Franz Liszt". Since Liszt couldn't figure out who she was, he went to knock her door. You can imagine what happened after that. This pianist was shocked to see Liszt standing in front of him. She begged his pardon. Liszt comforted her & led her to the piano. He told her to play "Hungarian Rhapsody #2", one of the piece in the evening concert. She played (誠惶誠恐地) and Liszt offered some suggestions. After 15 minutes, Liszt stood up and said to her, "Don't worry, now you are my student". The pianist was so moved that she cried uncontrollably. The story ends here. We don't know whether Liszt invited her to dinner or went to her concert. This is indeed a heart-warming story. It gives you some idea how gracious and generous Liszt was in his time.
There is a movie "Song Without End" which was released in 1960, our Freshmen days. I went to see this movie in Taipei. The cinematography is fantastic. It was shot by 黄宗沾 (James Wong Howe), a famous Chinese photographer in Hollywood. The movie portrays the life of Liszt and his love affairs with Countess Marie d'Agoult and Russian Princess Carolyn. Liszt was once considered a womanizer. Marie d'Agoult abandoned her husband & eloped with Liszt. She bore three daughters for him. Ironically, one of Liszt's daughter Cosima later eloped with Richard Wagner without permission from Liszt. Now you know how romantic people were in that Romantic Era.
One of Liszt's famous piece is Liebestraume (Dreams of Love), very very dream like romantic piece.
The music is based on the poem "Love as long as you can!" by Ferdinand Freiligrath. The lyrics is something like the following:
愛之夢,奇妙心声... 愛之夢,柔情蜜意...
愛之夢,温馨纏綿... 愛之夢,歡樂無窮...
愛之夢,幸福充盈... 愛之夢,綿延永遠...
Another Liszt's famous piece is Hungarian Rhapsody #2.
This rhapsody is a typical Hungarian folk dance Csardas. It usually consists of two parts, one slow "Lassu" section followed with a fast "Friss" section in dance form. I found a video clip of Csardas in the next link. Although the music is not composed by Liszt, it shows you how a typical Csardas looks like. The dance was performed in the Imperial Hofburg from Vienna. Thanks to Andre Rieu. If you are interested, the music is "Komm, Zigany (Come, Gypsy)" from operetta Grafin Mariza composed by another Hungarian, Emmerich Kalman.
It should be noted that while Liszt is famous for his Hungarian Rhapsodies, Brahms is the king of Hungarian Dances. Brahms composed 21 dances based on Hungarian folk tunes with #5 the most popular.
The last video clip is from the movie "Song of Love". This is the beginning part of the movie. Clara Schumann played the famous Piano Concerto #1 by Liszt. She played the 1st movement & switched to 4th movement. Usually a typical concerto has three movements. Here Liszt got away with four movements and played without pause or interruption between movements, unconventional. If you are popular and talented like Liszt, you can do whatever you like.
0:00 - 3:02: 1st movement, heavy & forceful
3:02 - 4:01: near the end of 3rd movement
4:03 - 4:17: The person sat behind the king was Franz Liszt.
4:02 - 6:24: 4th movement, lively & brilliant
5:10 - 5:18: The person sat beside Clara was her father Friedrich Wieck.
Note: Due to copyright issue on YouTube, the above link is no longer available. However, you probably can check out the DVD from Netflix.
Here is another legendary story. Liszt put words to the opening measures purposely. The first two measures sounds like "Das versteht ihr alle nicht, haha!". Translated into English is "None of you understand this, HaHa!'. 0:38- 0:42 is the first two measures. It repeats once at 0:43-0.48. I was in Davies Symphony Hall of San Francisco last October. They performed this masterpiece with pianist & full orchestra. With its acoustics & subtle echo of the hall, I heard something like "You don't know what this is, HaHa!". Listen carefully, you will know what I mean.
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If you are interested in listening to the Piano Concerto #1 in complete form, here is one performed by Valentina Lisitsa. She is from Ukraine, a talented pianist. She dreamed to become a professional chess player while she was young. She must be a very versatile person. It is hard to imagine how playing professional chess & piano can mix in a harmonious manner. While you watch the video, you don't see the pause between movement 1 & 2, also 3 & 4. In fact there is no pause between 2 & 3 either if the video is not cut into two parts. Also watch the last several measures in movement 4, you can see the way Lisitsa played is quite different from Katherine Hepburn. Lisitsa stops well before the orchestra. However, Hepburn holds the key and keeps there until the orchestra stops. We can say this is up to the interpretation of the pianist or the conductor as they may see it fits. Here I rather trust Lisitsa's version than Hepburn's as she is just acting in the movie.
Concerto #1 (1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6i0KQTWic&feature=fvsr
0:00 - 6:04: the 1st movement
6:04 - 9:38: the 2nd movement
Concerto #1 (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFuiozEGjIY&feature=relmfu
0:00 - 5:48: the 3rd movement
5:48 - 9:57: the 4th movement
Here is some information about Les Preludes. When it was published, the score included a preface as follows:
What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death? Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar; and where in the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom, and when "the trumpet sounds the alarm", he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy.
From the above, Les Preludes is actually the "Ode of Life (人生之頌歌)". There are four main themes in the music.
1. 青春的遐想與愛情的渴望
2. 理想的狂颩與生命的旋風
3. 愛情的慰藉與家園的平安
4. 激情的戰鬥与光輝的勝利
It is a Symphonic Poem, the whole piece is about 18 minutes. It is played without any interruption.
Les Preludes (1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BZgte0ObLw
Les Preludes (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRa36DV6zJ8&feature=related
PS: Just open another Explorer window, copy & paste website address to it & watch the video clip.
If you listen to the 3rd movement of Liszt Piano Concerto #1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFuiozEGjIY&feature=relmfu
pay attention to the time line between 1:23 and 2:50. Did you hear something interesting? It is a light metal tinkling chimes. It is from a Triangle (三角铃). It is very rare to hear triangle in a concerto. Hanslick, a contemporary of Liszt & a famous music critic called this concerto a Triangle Concerto & downgraded it to something like popular music. Apparently the instrument like triangle was only used in popular music circle at that time. Actually I think it is cute to hear something tinkling, give me a feeling of "虛無缥渺".
The "HaHa!" main theme shows up in this 3rd movement again, 4:28-4:50 before reaching the end of the movement.
The other famous piece is "Mephisto Waltz". You can listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GctzCDokgbQ
(part 1) &
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTQ9kiSAXAk&feature=related
(part 2).
陳哲俊兄 sent us a link "維也納新年音樂會2011 HD版" in February. However it is not a complete program. If you have DVD, you can see "Mephisto Waltz" played in the early part of the program, but no ballet with it. If I work in Disney Studio, I will recommend to include "Mephisto Waltz" & "Les Preludes" in the Disney movie like Fantasia.
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