In one telling sequence in “The Liszt Project,” Mr. In many of his late pieces he explores radical chromatic harmony and dissonance, sometimes cutting loose almost completely from tonal moorings. These Liszt pieces are juxtaposed with works by Berg, Wagner, Scriabin, Bartok, Messiaen, Ravel and the Italian composer Marco Stroppa.Īs a composer, Liszt was often an iconoclastic adventurer, especially in works with fluid, diaphanous textures and sounds that anticipated Impressionism. Aimard brings his consummate skills and musical insights to performances of Liszt’s formidable Piano Sonata and lesser-known later works. This is exactly what the brilliant pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard accomplishes in his two-disc album “The Liszt Project,” which will be released by Deutsche Grammophon in September. Walker said, Liszt essentially invented the idea of the piano recital, purposefully borrowing a literary term to indicate that a piano program should be not just a collection of interesting pieces but also a musical essay with a theme or narrative. If the “Hammerklavier” presented the “riddle of the Sphinx,” as Berlioz wrote, then Liszt had solved it, and “in such a way that had the composer himself returned from the grave, a paroxysm of joy and pride would have swept over him.” In making comprehensible a work not yet comprehended, Berlioz added, Liszt proved that “he is the pianist of the future.” Liszt showed that here was an exhilarating Beethoven masterpiece.Īfter hearing Liszt perform the sonata in 1836, Berlioz wrote of Liszt’s impressive fidelity to the text in a review quoted in the first volume of Mr. Take Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, a piece that during Liszt’s years as a touring virtuoso was widely considered an incoherent, unplayable creation of an old, deaf and eccentric composer. Liszt was a champion of knotty works that mystified the public: not only music by contemporaries but also older scores, like the late Beethoven and Schubert piano sonatas. Walker emphasized two facets of Liszt the pianist that are more relevant than ever. There have been Liszt solo piano recordings by Marc-André Hamelin, Nelson Freire, Garrick Ohlsson and others, with more to come. Culling items from the Universal Classics catalog, Deutsche Grammophon released a limited-edition, 34-CD boxed set, “Liszt: The Collection,” a comprehensive offering of Liszt’s music, including organ pieces, songs and sacred vocal works. In this bicentennial year there has been a bounty of Liszt recordings. As a conductor, he introduced seminal scores, including Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” in Weimar. As a composer, beyond his works for piano, Liszt was the inventor of the orchestral tone poem and an inspired songwriter, and he produced a body of sublime sacred choral works. But he began by describing the stunning breadth of Liszt’s accomplishments, which unfolded, he said, “simultaneously in six directions.”įirst and foremost, Liszt was a colossal pianist, the most awesome virtuoso of his era, who in his playing and his compositions for piano pushed the boundaries of technique, texture and sound. Walker gave a lecture, “Liszt at the Keyboard,” focusing on that master’s contributions to the piano. Last month, during the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College the New School for Music, Mr. Walker makes a case for Liszt, who died in 1886, as the towering musical figure of the 19th century. ![]() ![]() ![]() In his monumental three-volume Liszt biography and in two supplemental books, Mr. One person who would agree is the musicologist Alan Walker. 22, might have been my choice for the top spot. In fact, Liszt, born 200 years ago this Oct. ![]() Among comments from readers, there were surprisingly few calls to include him in this select group.īut if this exercise, an intellectual game played seriously, had involved coming up with the Top 10 musicians in history - those creative artists whose overall contributions had enormous influence on the art form - Liszt would easily have made the list. In January, during my Top 10 Composers project, a two-week series of deliberative articles, blog posts and videos to come up with a list of the greatest composers in history, Liszt was never really a contender.
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