Talk:Franz Liszt/Archive 5
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Hope it's Ok with all, I archived this page from where Archive 3 now leaves off. Thought it was definitely getting too difficult to scroll to bottom. Also, last point had been settled by consensus. FYI, to avoid redunancy and confusion, for an extended discussion on the nationality of Franz Liszt, please see here. Thank you. aNubiSIII (T / C) 07:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
From my opinion the chapter should better either be deleted (for sparring space) or entirely rewritten. Without wanting to blame or insult anyone, some critical remarks may follow below.
Paragraph 1:
The first sentence is a typical Peacock term, if not wrong. Since the mentioned Etudes were composed in 1837-39, it is already from this utmost unlikely that afterwards no further development in Liszt's playing abilities can be detected. In fact, among Liszt's most difficult concert pieces are the Fantasy on melodies from Mozart's Figaro and Don Juan and the Konzertphantasie über spanische Weisen of 1842 and 1844-45 respectively. The last sentence of the paragraph is not typical for Liszt, since it is true for every professional player.
Paragraph 2:
Practically every single sentence is wrong.
Paragraph 3:
Having monstrous hands (Liszt didn't have them.) is no "technical innovation". The paragraph is nothing more than a most commonly used, very lame excuse for not playing Liszt's piano works.
Paragraph 4:
It was in spring 1841 when Anton Rubinstein started giving concerts as child prodigy. Until then he had already for himself "discovered the laws which govern the keyboard". (What "laws", by the way?) By that time there were further virtuosos with dazzling technical abilities (for example Thalberg, Döhler, Dreyschock and others.) They all played fast octaves, rapid passages, trills in all imaginable variants, daring leaps and much more besides, and not a single one of them had learnt piano playing from Liszt. Rachmaninoff's playing had much resemblance with that of Józef Hofmann who did not study with Liszt. The claim, Rachmaninoff had from Liszt's works "discovered the laws which govern the keyboard", cannot be verified. Mentioning Paderewski is insulting for Liszt.
Paragraph 5:
The paragraph is full of Peacock terms.
Paragraph 6:
Concerning both events much is wrong.
In volume 1843 of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik there is a very satirical essay "Kalkbrenners Apotheose". According to this, Friedrich Kalkbrenner had near the end of the 18th century invented piano playing. Shortly afterwards he came to Vienna where even Beethoven had to learn from him. Isn't there a strong resemblance with this article's chapter 2.4 at present state?85.22.24.149 (talk) 09:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this chapter ought to be rewritten. In fact the most significant Liszt's contributions to piano playing are not mentioned : the use of four bars in the first Petrarch's sonnett, the particuliar Lisztians rythmic pattern (see, for instance, the repeated notes in the first Mephisto-Waltz), the use of impressionists harmonies in the Villa d'Este or the Nuages gris… Moreover, schould this chapter be renamed : something like Liszt's pianistic heritage. Alexander Doria (talk) 18:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
According to chapter 1.1 there is a guess that Liszt may have first played in public at Baden at age eight. It is doubtful, however, whether the statement is true, and I never read anything about it. As far as nobody adds a reference to a reliable source, the statement is superfluous and should better be removed.85.22.6.182 (talk) 09:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
The above debate with user 198.166.31.27I has turned into a special debate about technical aspects of Liszt's Etudes. Since this seems to be a bit off topic in the above chapter, and since an adequate reply must be comparatively long, I'll put some additional remarks to this place. At first I must admit that yesterday I was on error regarding the edition of the Grandes Etudes at imslp.org. While the edition is indeed by Busoni, as can be seen from the annotations (signed with F.B.), it contains no metronome indications. I might have confused it with another edition, also by Busoni, but this time with metronome indications.
In Liszt's Etude No.8 (the later "Ricordanza") the trill plus harmonic figuration of the right hand in the second bar after the introduction is somewhat uncomfortable because of the interlocking hands. However, the device as such was nothing new, and I don't think that in this particular case "transcendental" skills are required. Better suiting examples for a comparison with Liszt's settings in his Sonnambula-Fantasy can be found in Theodor Döhler's Fantasies op.8 and 9 on melodies from the same opera. The two Fantasies were published in the first half of 1835. Döhler, student of Czerny, was born in Lucca where his family lived and where he was court pianist. His Fantasy op.9 was dedicated to the Marquise Virgine de Bocella. Her husband Cesare was a very close friend of Liszt and Marie d'Agoult. In late summer 1839 they lived in Lucca. Shortly afterwards Liszt composed his own Sonnambula-Fantasy. Döhler's two Fantasies are composed as theme, variations and finale. In one of the variations of his op.8 the right hand plays a long trill together with the same melody which is also in Liszt's Fantasy played by the right hand together with a long trill. The theme of Döhler's op.9 is the same melody as played in Liszt's Fantasy by the left hand. Thus Liszt had in a sense combined both.
Regarding the technical problem in mm.7ff of Liszt's Etude No.2., my citing Czerny was correct. A similar technical problem like that in Liszt's Etude can be found in No.45 of the "Schule des Virtuosen". The meter is 3/8 time, every bar filled with three octaves and three single notes, with metronome indication of 88 for whole bars. The key is A Minor as in Liszt's Etude, and some more resemblance with further ones of the technical problems in the Etude by Liszt can be detected. Since it was in March 1837 when Czerny met Liszt in Paris, it can hardly be doubted that Liszt got knowledge of Czerny's newest studies. Czerny's "Schule des Virtuosen" is a true school for virtuosos, by the way. A person who has successfully worked through these 60 studies has the fingers of Lang Lang or even a bit more. Especially the left hand has much more intricate problems to solve than in any piano work by Liszt.
Further examples for octaves with repeated single notes can be found in No.8 of Adolph Henselt's Etudes op.2 and in the piece "Reconnaissance" of Schumann's Carnaval op.9, both published in 1837 prior to Liszt's composing his Grandes Etudes. In Henselt's and Schumann's settings the order of octave and single note is inverted in comparison with Liszt's, but the analogy is still close enough. Henselt's tempo is Allegro, and Schumann's tempo Animato. Wilhelm von Lenz, in the last chapter of his book "Die großen Pianoforte Virtuosen unserer Zeit", published in the 1870s, called Henselt the true champion of all contemporary piano virtuosos. The book was read by Liszt, who agreed with this. (Liszt also wrote, Lenz had by far exaggerated Liszt's own role in Paris.) Henselt’s Etudes are very beautiful and worth playing, but with regard to Liszt the example by Schumann is more interesting. To this comes that Liszt most likely had no knowledge of Henselt's Etudes prior to spring 1838. In a letter to Schumann from the beginning of May 1838 he for the first time mentioned them, calling them quite nice but nothing more. In his later years he radically changed his mind. Henselt's Etudes were now jewels of the piano literature.
Schumann's Carnaval, composed 1834-35, was at end of June 1837 published in Paris as gift for the subscribers of the Revue et Gazette musicale. Hence also Liszt must have received it. There is little doubt that the person whom he recognized when looking at "Reconnaissance" was nobody else than him himself. Schumann had taken a melody very similar to the melody of No.11 of Liszt's youthful own Etudes op.6. In 1839, in one of his letters, Schumann asked Liszt to play one of his works at one of Liszt's planned concerts in Leipzig. It was Liszt's suggestion, taking a selection of the Carnaval. He afterwards asked Schumann, which ones of the pieces of the cycle he should play. Schumann in return suggested taking "Préambule", "Reconnaissance" and "Marche des "Davidsbündler" contre les Philistines". (Liszt then played a selection of 10 pieces instead.) Thus also Schumann appears to have identified "Reconnaissance" with Liszt. After Liszt had in summer 1837 received the issue of the Revue et Gazette musicale with the Carnaval as gift he went to Italy. Shortly afterwards, in September 1837, he started composing his Grandes Etudes. So, not only Czerny but also Schumann can be suspected as Liszt's model with regard to the said technical problem in his Etude No.2. While still much is uncertain, it should at least have become clear that Liszt did not "revolutionise piano technique in almost every sector."85.22.28.127 (talk) 09:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
There is an award named after Liszt. Could someone help me with more information about this award? --STTW (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
The theory of Liszt's revolutionising piano playing was apparently an invention of Lina Ramann. She had in November 1876 asked Liszt whether his "Umwälzung der Klaviertechnik" ("Revolution of piano technique") had been due to Paganini's Caprices. on December 1 Liszt wrote to this that it was his biographer who had to decide, since he himself was unable to take an objective point of view towards his foolish own productions. It was his only consolation that they could have become even worse after all.
Lina Ramann's "decision" can be found in her Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch, Erster Band, Zweites Buch, p.106. According to this, Liszt's hands had been rather small and could hardly stretch a 9th. From Paganini's Caprices, according to Ramann, Liszt took the idea how to play wider intervals, and this was his entire "revolution". Ramann's theory is of course wrong. There were others who wrote wide intervals as well (for example Schumann, Chopin, Henselt, Thalberg, Döhler, Dreyschock and many further ones). To this comes that the theme of Liszt's Clochette-Fantasy was not taken from Paganini's Caprices, but from a violin concerto, and that there are no extraordinarily wide intervals in this particular piece. It is to be presumed that Liszt himself read Ramann's theory with astonishment.85.22.19.160 (talk) 09:25, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
The shortened version of chapter "Original songs" has become a little bit too short. It is very important that there must be some remarks concerning the volume of six songs as published by Liszt in the beginning of 1844, but for this time without the title "Buch der Lieder". It is due to the fact that the story as told in the three volumes would otherwise be incomplete. The first volume of the "Buch der Lieder" is a kind of private album of the "Family Zyi", i. e. of Liszt and Marie d'Agoult together with their daughter Blandine. The second volume is commencing with "Oh! quand je dors" ("Oh! when I'm dreaming"), a love song in Italian style, composed for Marie d'Agoult for the occasion of her birthday on December 31, 1841. The following five songs are reflecting aspects of the couple's relation until summer 1842. On November 11, 1842, in Frankfurt am Main, Liszt received a letter of Marie d'Agoult which he understood as immediate end of his relation with her. A couple of days later, on a steam boat, he passed Nonnenwerth, for this time all alone. With tears in is eyes he remembered his past and then composed the song "Nonnenwerth" with refrain "Maria, kehre wieder!" ("Mary, please return!"). In letters to Marie d'Agoult he promised to finish his concert tours in spring or summer 1843. In June 1843, when they met at Nonnenwerth again, Liszt told Marie d'Agoult, the isle would be either the temple or the grave of their love. Unfortunately, their stay of summer 1843 was even more catastrophic than that of summer 1841. Nonnenwerth thus turned out as their grave, and the third volume of Liszt's songs is strongly correlated with this scenery. Another example, illustrating the same events, is the Norma-Fantasy, by the way. The published version was made in autumn 1843 at Rolandseck near Nonnenwerth.
In the beginning of November 1843, as soon as Marie d'Agoult had returned to Paris, she started writing her novel "Nélida". There is little doubt that Liszt knew of this. By the same time he at his side asked Gustav Schilling at Stuttgart to write a praising book about him. Schilling wrote the book Franz Liszt, aus nächster Beschauung dargestellt, where he posed Liszt as the most intelligent, most genial and most benevolent person of all times. With an oeuvre, merely comprising of transcriptions of popular melodies, Schilling posed him as a composer whom even Beethoven could hardly match. It was this book which was later taken by Lina Ramann as source of her Franz Liszt als Künstler und Mensch. In this book Liszt is nothing less than a Jesus Christ of the 19th century. Still later it was Alan Walker who took Ramann's book as model for his own books about Liszt. While Walker's productions are by some of you still read as if they were parts of the Holy Bible, the true origin of most of Walker's exaggerations and most of the well known legends was Liszt's particular situation in autumn 1843.85.22.5.252 (talk) 10:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
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