Symphonic Poems (Liszt)

The Symphonic Poems (S.95-107) are a series of 13 orchestral works by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. The first twelve were composed in the decade 1848-58 (though some use material conceived earlier); the last, "Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe" ("From the Cradle to the Grave"), followed in 1882. They were enormously influential in establishing the genre of orchestral programme music—music written to illustrate an extra-musical plan derived from a play, poem, painting or work of nature—and they inspired the symphonic poems of Bedrich Smetana, Richard Strauss and others.

In chronological order they are as follows, though the published numbering differs as shown:

* No. 1 Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, after Victor Hugo (1848-49; originally orchestrated by Joachim Raff, third orchestral version by Liszt, 1854)
* No. 3 Les Préludes, after Lamartine (1848) based on prelude to the cantata "Les quatre elements" (1845)
* No. 2 Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo, after Byron (1849 from earlier sketches, orchestrated by August Conradi and Raff; expanded and orchestrated by Liszt, 1854)
* No. 5 Prometheus (1850, originally overture to Choruses from Herder's "Prometheus Unbound")
* No. 8 Héroïde Funèbre (1849-50) (based on first movement of unfinished "Revolutionary Symphony" of 1830)
* No. 6 Mazeppa, after Victor Hugo (1851)
* No. 7 Festklänge ("Festal Sounds") (1853)
* No. 4 Orpheus (1853-4)
* No. 9 Hungaria (1854)
* No. 11 Hunnenschlacht ("Battle of the Huns"), after the painting by Kaulbach (1856-7)
* No. 12 Die Ideale, after the poem by Schiller (1857)
* No. 10 Hamlet, after the drama by Shakespeare (1858)
* No. 13 Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe ("From the Cradle to the Grave") (1881-2)

Liszt also made additional versions for the piano; Nos. 1-13 were arranged for Piano duet and Two pianos (except No. 13), and only Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13 were arranged for Solo piano. An organ arrangement of Orpheus (No. 4) also exists. In addition most of the symphonic poems were transcribed for piano by Carl Tausig and August Stradal.

Origins

Liszt foreshadowed his own adoption of the symphonic poem in a number of piano works. This was especially so in the "Album d'un voyager" (1835-6), later published as "Années de Pèlerinage". "Chapelle de Guillaume Tell" is a musical portrait of the Swiss national hero. "Au Lac de Wallenstadt" and "Valée d'Obermann" bear literary quotations in the same manner as the later orchestral pieces. "" is an extended paraphrase of a poem by Victor Hugo.MacDonald, 18:429.]

By the time he made his initial forays into similarly themed orchestral music, Liszt showed a marked preference for the single-movement format. Nor was he alone in this choice. The direct history of the symphonic poem can be traced to the dramatic overtures of Ludwig van Beethoven such as those for "Egmont" and "Coriolanus." These works display a concentration and expressive power which would become characteristic of many single-movement works. They also show an independence from their theatrical origins that would prompt Beethoven as well as other early- to mid-19th century, composers to write "concert overtures" such as "Der Beherrscher der Geister" ("The Ruler of the Spirits", 1811), by Carl Maria von Weber; the "Waverly", "Rob Roy" and "Roi Lear" overtures of Hector Berlioz; and the "Hebrides Overture" (also known as "Fingal's Cave", 1830) by Felix Mendelssohn.Spencer, P., 1233.] [MacDonald, 18:428.]

The symphonic poem offered what seemed a viable alternative to the Classical strictures of composition. Classical composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven tended to be natural symphonists because they thoughth in terms of architecture, and the classical symphony was basically an architectural form.Cooper, 25.] Sonata form, the form used by a symphonist, was far from a rigid set of rules; on the contrary, it left innumerable choices to the composer for building a coherent movement that possessed a diversity of imagination within the unity of the overall form. [Wood, 74.] Musical development, which functioned within sonata form, was designed and intended as a form of creative evolution or unfolding of latent possibilities in rhythm, melody and harmony of a given theme, either in part or in its entirety. This is a purely musical activity; it has little to do with the free fantasia, the rhapsodizing in a given atmosphere or upon a given poetic idea to which Romantic-era composers such as Liszt generally wrote their music. [Cooper, 29-30.] In other words, sonata form is a concept with no real application outside music, yet the Romantics constantly attempted to reconcile classical formal principles to external literary concepts.MacDonald, 18:432.]

Every symphonic poem is actually an extended fantasia. Some of these works may contain elements of the classical symphony and adhere to a point with its form; however, their underlying process is actually quite different.Cooper, 25.] To their free rhapsodizing Liszt added cyclic form, a procedure established by Beethoven in which certain movements are not only linked but actually reflect one another's content, [Walker, 357.] as well as thematic transformation, a type of variation form in which one theme is transformed not into a related or subsidiary theme to the main one but into new, sepaarate and independent themes. [Searle, 281.] Liszt perfected the creation of entire formal structures through the use of these two concepts, [Walker, 310.] giving those structures some unity in the process.Cooper, 25.] In one way, Liszt had little choice in the path he chose. The melodies which he and other Romantic composers tended to prefer were born fully formed, with all the emotion and musical interest which they could bear. They could not be developed any further. Therefore, the only course open to Romantic symphonists was to substitute a form of repetition for true development—in other words, to say in a different way what had already been said and trust the beauty and significance of what are fundamentally variations to supply the place of the development section demanded by sonata form. [Cooper, 30.] Thematic transformation could accommodate the dramatically charged phrases, highly colored melodies and atmospheric harmonies favored by the Romantic composers, giving the composer potentially greater flexibility than sonata form would allow. It also offered the option of creating new themes from the original one which could contast in mood and tone, which could allow programmatic concerns to dictate musical form more readily than before.MacDonald, "New Grove 2", 25:694.]

Not everyone agreed with Liszt intention of using thematic transformation as a source of musical development.MacDonald, "New Grove 2", 25:694.] Some critics saw his use of thematic transdformation as merely a substitution of repetition for musical development [Cooper, 31.] Liszt's own view of repetition was more positive than that of his critics. He once wrote, "It is a mistake to regard repetition as a poverty of invention. From the standpoint of the public it is indispensable for the understanding of the thought, while from the standpoint of Art it is almost identical with the demands of clarity, structure, and effectiveness."Quoted in Walker, 322.] In short, as he once told conductor Felix Weingartner, "Beautiful things must be repeated."Quoted in Walker, "'Weimar", 322.]

Coining the term

Liszt first used the term "symphonic poem" in public at a concert in Weimar on April 19, 1854 to describe his "Tasso". The title evidently pleased him because five days later, he used the term "poèmes symphoniques" in a letter to Hans von Bülow to describe "Les Preludes" and "Orpheus". [Walker, "Weimar", 304.] His invention of the term "symphonic poem" shows his desire for the form, albeit in one movement, to display the logic of symphonic thought.MacDonald, 18:429.] By doing so, he attempted to combine the elements of overture and symphony with descriptive elements and produce single-movement works that approached symphonic first movements in form and scaleSpencer, P., 1233] yet did not obey Classical forms strictly.Searle, "New Grove", 11:41.]

Until he coined the term, Liszt introduced several of these pieces as overtures; in fact, some of the poems were initially overtures or preludes for other works, only later being expanded or rewritten past the confines of the overture form. The first version of "Tasso", Liszt stated, was an incidental overture for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1790 drama "Torquato Tasso", performed for the Weimar Goethe Centennary Festival. [Shulstad, 206-7.] "Orpheus" was first performed in Weimar on Febrauary 16, 1854 as a prelude to Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera "Orfeo ed Euridice". [Shulstad, 208.] Likewise, "Hamlet" started out in 1858 as a prelude to the Shakespeare tragedy. [Searle, "Orchestral Works," 298.] "Prometheus" came from several revisions of an overture to a choral setting Liszt made of Johann Gottfried Herder's "Der entfesselte Prometheus" ("Prometheus Unbound"), first performed on August 24, 1850 for the Herder Festival in Weimar. [Shulstad, 209.] "Les Préludes" was also conceived as the introduction for a cantata, "Les Quartes Eléments", in 1844-5. [Shulstad, 213.]

Creative experiment

Trial and error

Particularly striking in these works is Liszt's approach to musical form. When looked upon as purely musical structures, Liszt's symphonic poems (and the "Faust" and "Dante" Symphonies) show extremely creative amendments to sonata form. Their composition proved daunting. Shorter narrative pieces dictated their own forms. Organizing longer and more allusive pieces of the type Liszt was now composing, on the other hand, posed considerable problems. Liszt relied on a loose episodic form in which sections follow one another wirthout overriding musical logic, using motifs and thematic transformation in similar manner to how Richard Wagner would later compose.MacDonald, 18:429.] In the process, recapitulations were foreshortened. Codas assumed developmental proportions. Themes became shuffled into new and unexpected patterns of order, with kaleidoscopic contrasts integrated and three- or four-movement structures rolled into one in a continual process of creative experimentation.Walker, "Weimar", 304.]

Part of this creative experimentation was a trial and error approach, by which Liszt constructed compositions with varying sections of music not necessarily having clear or distinct beginnings and ends. He sometimes sketched sections without fully completing them, usually on a small number of staves with some indication of the orchestration. He would then leave it to an assistant—August Conradi from 1848 to 1849, Joachim Raff from 1850 to 1854—to realize his ideas and to provide a performable score. Liszt then corrected and made changes in the score, with a new score often being prepared in the process. He made further amendments by moving sections into different structural relationships, modifying or composing new connective material to gain a complete piece of music. The music would be copied, then tried out in rehearsals with the Weimarian Court orchestra and further changes made in the light of practical experience. [Mueller, 329, 331f.] Searle, "New Grove", 11:41] Walker, "New Grove 2", 14:772.] Many years later, Liszt reminisced on how his compositional development hinged on an orchestra performing his works. "I needed to hear them in order to get an idea of them." [Quoted in Walker, "Weimar", 304.] He added that it was much more for this reason than for the idea of securing a public for his own works that he promoted them in Weimar and elsewhere. [Walker, "Weimar", 304.]

Works in progress

After many such stages of composition, rehearsal and revision, Liszt might reach a version where different parts of the musical form seemed balanced. At that point he might be satisfied. However, it was his habit to write modifications to already printed scores. From his perspective, his works kept being "works in progress" as he continued reshaping, reworking, adding and subtracting material. Sometimes a composition could exist in four or five versions simultaneously. [Mueller, 329, ] Walker, "New Grove 2", 14:772.] [Walker, "Virtuoso", 306.] For instance, after the publication of "Festlänge", Liszt indicated a cut of "45 pages" at the end of the polonaise section. This cut is so large—more than 300 measures, wholly a third of the entire work—and the additional variants he penned into the score so numerous, that whether the work was actually "finished" in the conventional sense is actually open to question. [Among other examples was Liszt's willingness to detach the March-finale of "Mazeppa" from the rest of the work so that the March could be performed separately. Also, on the general question of cuts, it is interesting to note that when Liszt recommended them, he tended to lose conventional musical development and preserve thematic transformation. (Walker, "Weimar", 323 ft. 37.)] This point is both important and fascinating because many works of Liszt pose the problem of choosing which variants to include, placing an unusual responsibility on the performer. Liszt saw no reason as a composer that a performer should not be given genuine alternatives among which to choose how a musical work might unfold. [Searle, "Orchestral," 295.]

To the modern mind, where every phrase of a musical work may be considered inviolable, Liszt's view on cuts and alternative passages in his works may appear confusing and mysterious. Wouldn't offering to jettison such a large section of a composition, or to offfer such a range of alternatives, cause one to question the worth of the rest of the piece? Liszt's attitude needs to be kept in historical perspective. The art of abridgement was a common practice of the time. It was considered a realistic approach to music-making, stemming from the fact that many composers were also performers, conductors, or both, and the performance of a work usually took precedence over the composition itself. Liszt was a child of his time in this respect. The performer in him obliged in building places for cuts into his works. Such a practice for him was a creative, carefully selected choice, which in itself was part of the composing process. [Walker, "Weimar", 322-3.]

New bottles

Liszt's justification for composing as he did was the comment, "New wine demands new bottles," itself a variation of the biblical adage of new wine splitting old wineskins. [Matthew 9:17.] It was Liszt's way of saying that form and content go together, changes in one necessitating amendments in the other. [Walker, "Weimar", 357.] The language of music was changing. Because of this fact, it seemed pointless to Liszt to contain it in forms that were 100 years old—hence his shifts in structural emphasis. [Walker, "New Grove 2", 14:772.] Some of his practices, such as repeating whole sections a semitone higher, may seem inorganic, and there may be too may passages which come off as purely introductory or transitional in nature. Even so, Liszt was able to free music from what he saw as the straightjacket of classical formsSearle, "Orchestral Works," 283.] and his radical approach to form earned him the notice of Arnold Schonberg and Béla Bartók many years after the fact. [Walker, "Weimar", 308-9.]

"Tasso" is a perfect example of both Liszt's working methods and his achievements based on his restless experimentation. The 1849 version following a conventional overture layout, divided into a slow section ("Lament") and a fast one ("Triumph"). Even with this division, the entire work was actually a set of variations on a single melody—a folk hymn sung to Liszt by a gondolier in Venice in the late 1830s. Among the most significant revisions Liszt made was the addition of a middle section in the vein of a minuet. The theme of the minuet was, again, a variant of the gondalier's folk hymn, thus becoming another example of thematic transformation. Calmer than either of the outer sections, it was intended to depict Tasso's more stable years in the employment of the d'Esty family in Ferrara. [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:35226~T1 allmusic.com] ] In a margin note Liszt informs the conductor that the orchestra "assumnes a dual role" in this section, with strings playing one self-contained piece while woodwinds play another. This was very much in the manner of Italian composer Pietro Raimondi, whose contrapuntal mastery was such that he had written three oratorios—titled "Joseph", "Potiphar" and "Jacob"—which could be performed either invidually or combined. Liszt made a study of Raimondi's work but the Italian composer died before Liszt could meet him personally. [Walker, "Weimar", 317, 319.] While the minuet section was probably added to act as a musical bridge between the opening lament and final triumphal sections, [Searle, "New Grove", 11:42.] it along with other modifications rendered the "Tasso Overture" far too long and developed to remain an overture—hence its redesignation as a symphonic poem. [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:35226~T1 allmusic.com] ]

Two things helped facilitate Liszt's working as he did. First, he tended to compose very quickly and liked to work on several works simultaneously, even if those compositions differed widely in character. It was as though each work helped stimulte the presence of all the others. This practice was one reason his music seemed to pour out of Weimar at such a prodigious rate. Second, Liszt was able to compose works in his head, down to the last detail, and keep them there until he could write them down. He once told Agnès Street-Klindworth that while he had worked feverishly on the Credo of his "Gran" Mass, he had simultaneously composed the following four sections of this complex work, having them "almost done in my head." [Walker, "Weimar", 301.]

Questions of orchestration

One important note: Raff put out inflated claims about his own role in Liszt's compositional process; these claims, which were published posthumously by "Die Musik" in 1902-3, suggested that he was an equal collaborator with Liszt. This effectively placed a question mark over the authenticity of Liszt's orchestral music. This mark was removed when composer and Liszt scholar Peter Raabe carefully compared all sketches then known of Liszt's orchestral works with the published versions of the same works. He demonstrated that, regardless of the position with first drafts, or of how much assistance he may have received from Raff or Conradi at that point, every note of the final versions is by Liszt himself and represent his own intentions.Searle, "New Grove", 11:41.] [Walker, "New Grove 2", 6:page cit needed; 14:772.]

Programmatic content

Prefaces, not programs

Liszt also provided written prefaces for nine of his symphonic poems. [Shulstad, 214.] He knew well of the general public's fondness for attaching stories to instrumental music in an attempt to explain the inexplicable. In a preemptive gesture, he therefore provided context before others could invent something to take its place. [Walker, "Weimar", 306.] Liszt may have also felt that since many of these works were written in new forms, some sort of verbal or written explanation would be welcome to explain their shape.Searle, 283.] Two important things to keep in mind, however, are that Liszt wrote his prefaces or programs for these works long after composing the music and that his then-consort Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein likely had a hand in their formulation. The result is very possibly that posterity may have over-estimated the importance of extra-musical thought in Liszt's symphonic poems. [Walker, "Weimar", 307.]

Emotion, not depiction

Because Liszt felt that the language of music could be cross-pollinated by other arts, such as poetry and painting, there are still musicians who feel Liszt fostered the idea that music is a representational art—in other words, that music can depict a poem, a picture, a flower or a storm. Liszt never stated this. [Walker, "Weimar", 358.] Moreover, he writes in the "General Preface" to the symphonic poems,

It is obvious that things which can appear only objectively to perception can in no way furnish connecting points to music; the poorest of apprentice landscape painters could give with a few chalk strokes a much more fanciful picture than a musician operating with all the resources of the best orchestra. But if those same things are subjected to dreaming, to contemplation, to emotional uplift, have they not a peculiar kinship with music; and should not music be able to translate them into its mysterious language? [Quoted in Walker, "New Grove 2", 14:770.]

In other words, music cannot portray anything. However, it can accomplish the subtler task of expressing the mood that a picture or poem evokes in the heart of a recipient and transmuting it into musical language. Of all the places for a composer to seek artistic stimulation, Lizzt seems to be saying that the other arts are the best place to be since they inhabit a similar emotional world, even though that emotional world may be expressed in very different ways. In this sense, Liszt comes close to espousing a unity of the arts later stated by Richard Wagner. [Walker, "Weimar", 358.]

Music over narrative

Because Liszt held an idealized view of the symphonic poem as evocative rather than representational, he generally focused his imagination more on expressing poetic ideas rather than resort to pictorial realism. He refrained on the whole from narrative and literal description.MacDonald, 18:429.] In this regard he differed not only from Berlioz but also from many other composers who would write symphonic poems, such as Smetana, Dvorak and Richard Strauss. Even a battle piece such as "Hunnenschalacht" is treated symbolically rather than realistically for over half its length.Searle, "New Grove", 11:42.]

To Liszt, the musical construction of the piece was always more important than scene-painting.Searle, "New Grove", 11:42.] He therefore did not require that the form of a work depend entirely on pictoral or dramatic elements. In this sense, Liszt's thematic transformations differed from Richard Wagner's use of leitmotifs, in which similar metamorphoses are guided by the necessities of the drama. Liszt called the "Faust" Symphony "three character pieces," and the amount of actual storytelling is very small. In fact, Liszt often found the title for a work after he had composed it. [Searle, "New Grove", 11:34.]

Since Liszt's symphonic poems are not generally pictorial of specific things or events but remain poetic, some critics have questioned whether to consider them program music despite their composer's considerable advocacy to that effect. For Liszt, they argue, the music is always more important than the literary or pictorial ideas behind it, and that music will always unfold according to its own laws. [Walker, "Weimar", 305.] In the final analysis, they suggest, Liszt's program music must stand or fall as music, and the most enlightened gesture would be to give it the same attention, with an equally objective listening basis, as the absolute music of Beethoven or Brahms. [Walker, "Weimar", 308.]

Reception and historical importance

With the exception of "Les préludes", none of the symphonic poems have entered the standard repertoire, though critics suggest that the best of them—"Prometheus", "Hamlet", "Orpheus"—are worth further listening. Their historical importance cannot be denied, as Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss, among others, were influenced by them, adapting and developing the genre in their own manner. [Walker, "New Grove 2", 772.] While the poems may be unequal in scope and achievement, they still look forward at times to more modern developments, sowing the seeds of a rich crop of music in the two succeeding generations.MacDonald, "New Grove", 18:429.]

In their own time, in the context of the War of the Romantics, Liszt's symphonic poems became highly controversial. Liszt foresaw the controversy, writing, "The barometer is hardly set on praise for me at the moment. I expect quite a hard downpour of rain when the symphonic poems appear." [Quoted in Walker, 337.] His one-time concertmaster in the Weimar Court Orchestra, Joseph Joachim, was dismayed at what he considered their poverty of invention. [Walker, "Weimar", 346.] Brahms went so far as to call the pieces "toilet-paper music." [Swafford, "Brahms", page cit needed.]

More receptive was Wagner, who grasped the idea of the unity of the arts that Liszt espoused and wrote as much in his "Open Letter on Liszt's Symphonic Poems." This letter is considered seminal in the War of the Romantics. It is filled with observations about program music, the relationship between form and content and the historical links binding the symphonic poem to the classical symphony. The symphonic poems, Wagner assured, were first and foremost music. Their importance for history was in how their composer had created them from the potential essence of the other arts. Wagner's observations are considered by some critics as so accurate that they could easily have been prefaced by a number of discussions between Liszt and Wagner as to what exactly a symphonic poem was. [Walker, "Weimar", 358-9.]

Such was the roar of the controversy itself that two points were quickly drowned out. First, Liszt's own attitude toward program music was derived from Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, and he would have likely argued that his music, like the "Pastoral", was "more the expression of feeling than painting." [Quoted in Walker, "Weimar", 359.] Second, more conservative composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms had also written program music. Mendelssohn's "Hebrides" Overture could be considered a musical seascape based on autobiographical experience but indistinguishable in musical intent from Liszt's symphonic poems. Brahms had givven the title "Edward" to the first of his Op. 10 Ballades, thus naming it the musical counterpart of the old Scottish saga of that name. Nor was this the only time Brahms would write program music. [Walker, "Weimar", 359-60.]

Related works

Liszt's "Faust" and "Dante" Symphonies share the same aesthetic stance as the symphonic poems, though they are multi-movement works that employ a chorus, their compositional methods and aims are alike. "Two Episodes from lenau's Faust" should also be considered with the symphonic poems. The first, "Der nächtliche Zug," is closely descriptive of Faust as he watches a passing procession of pilgrims by night. The second, "Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke," which is also known as the First Mephisto Waltz, tells of Mephistopholes seizing a violin at a village dance. [MacDonald, "New Grove 2", 802.]

ee also

Symphonic poem

Notes

Bibliography

* ed. Abraham, Gerald, "Music of Tchaikovsky" (New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1946). ISBN n/a.
** Cooper, Martin, "The Symphonies"
** Wood, Ralph W., "Miscellaneous Orchestral Works"
* ed. Hamilton, Kenneth, "The Cambridge Companion to Liszt" (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). ISBN 0-521-64462-3 (paperback).
** Shulstad, Reeves, "Liszt's symphonic poems and symphonies"
* Mueller, Rena Charin: "Liszt’s "Tasso" Sketchbook: Studies in Sources and Revisions", Ph. D. dissertation, New York University 1986.
* ed Sadie, Stanley, "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, First Edition" (London: Macmillian, 1980). ISBN 0-333-23111-2
** MacDonald, Hugh, "Symphonic poem"
** Searle, Humphrey, "Liszt, Franz"
* ed Sadie, Stanley, "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition" (London: Macmillian, 2001). ISBN 0-333-60800-3
** MacDonald, Hugh, "Transformation, thematic"
** Walker, Alan, "Conradi, August"; "Liszt, Franz"
* ed. Walker, Alan, "Franz Liszt: The man and His Music" (New York: Taplinger Publkishing Company, 1970). SBN 8008-2990-5
** Searle, Humphrey, "The Orchestral Works"
* Searle, Humphrey, "The Music of Liszt", New York, Dover, 1966, p. 161.
* Walker, Alan, "Franz Liszt" (New York: Alfred A Knopf). ISBN 0-394-52540-X
**"Volume 1: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847" (1983)
**"Volume 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-1861" (1989)
* Watson, Derek, "Liszt", London, JM Dent, 1989, pp. 348-351.

External links

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