The final measures of Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s “Liebestod” (from IMSLP, public domain)
Last night in the Sol Joseph Recital Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Ross McKee Foundation presented the second of four events in this season’s Piano Talks series. The “talker” was pianist Peter Grunberg; and the full title of the program was quite comprehensive: Beyond the Piano – Before the Phonograph: Transcriptions and Paraphrases by Franz Liszt with Gratitude to Bellini, Berlioz, Schubert, Verdi, and Wagner. Each of those last names was of a composer whose instrumental and/or vocal music had been arranged for solo piano by Liszt, either as a straightforward transcription or as a more elaborate (and decidedly Lisztian) paraphrase.
This accounted for the entire program except for the opening selection, the fifth of the six solo piano compositions that Liszt collected under the title Consolations. In the earlier (S. 171a) collection of these pieces, the fifth was given the title “Madrigal.” Grunberg may have included it in his program under the assumption that Liszt had intended the piece to be a piano arrangement of a (perhaps imaginary) madrigal.
What was most interesting about the program was how Grunberg surveyed (not only through his performance but also in his spoken introductions) the extensive breadth of sources that Liszt adapted. These included folk music (as in the Hungarian rhapsodies), art song, symphonic music, and opera. As an adventurous pianist of highly limited means, I have long had a personal preference for the arrangements of songs by Franz Schubert, many of which are transcriptions so faithful to their sources that the score includes the vocal texts written above the piano staves. Grunberg’s selection in this category was the D. 828 “Die junge Nonne,” whose turbulent piano accompaniment was right up Liszt’s alley. Ironically, Grunberg’s other example of this genre was Liszt’s solo piano version of his own song setting of Petrarch’s Sonnet 104, the arrangement having been included in the second (Italian) “year” of his Années de pèlerinage (years of pilgrimage).
The symphonic repertoire involved the second half of the program’s main title. During the nineteenth century there were few opportunities for listening to concerts given by a full orchestra. The occasions were relatively few, and they were dispersed across Europe in a limited number of cities. Piano arrangements were often the only way a wider public could get to know this repertoire, and Liszt was happy to oblige in return for revenues from both performances and publications.
Indeed, Liszt prepared piano arrangements of all nine of the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven; and, towards the end of the twentieth century, the pianist Cyprien Katsaris took it upon himself to perform and record all of them. My wife and I had a chance to listen to his recital performance of the Opus 125 (“Choral”) symphony. It had all the appeal of a dog walking a great distance on its hind legs!
Grunberg’s selection was somewhat less ambitious. The transition from the introduction to the Allegro portion of the first movement of Hector Berlioz’ Opus 14 “Symphonie fantastique.” Liszt greatly admired Berlioz and was one of that composer’s leading supporters. His transcription was a further gesture of that support.
Most interesting, however, was Grunberg’s presentation of Liszt’s venture into the operatic repertoire. In my own listening experience, the example I seem to have encountered most frequently has been his paraphrase on the famous quartet from the final act of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto. For my money this provides one of the best examples of a balanced relationship between honoring the source and giving the pianist ample opportunity to strut his/her stuff. Grunberg concluded the first half of his program with an admirably delightful account of that balance.
The second half of the program was devoted to two operas that are rarely mentioned in the same sentence, Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma and Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This may seem to be an unlikely coupling, but Grunberg observed that Bellini was one of Wagner’s favorite composers. Those inclined to raise their eyebrows might wish to consult Ellen Lockhart’s recent book (based on her doctoral thesis), Animation, Plasticity, & Music in Italy, 1770–1830. Here is a brief excerpt from the second chapter of that book:
Bellinian “numbers” like Gualtiero’s aria in act 1 of Il pirata feature a continuous texture, devoid of extended ritornelli but defined instead by a constant interchange between accompanied recitative, arioso, and orchestral gesture; a single number might encompass dozens of tiny shifts of character, tempo, and key, and a few larger ones. (John Rosselli called this music “startlingly Wagnerian.”)
In this context one can appreciate Wagner viewing Bellini as a kindred spirit, if not a source of inspiration!
Nevertheless, Liszt’s treatment of their two respective operas could not have been more different. “Réminiscences de Norma” recalls (as the title suggests) three thematic episodes. Those who know this opera only for “Casta diva” will be disappointed. The emphasis is on orchestral and choral writing that is both dramatic and emphatic, and Liszt milks the opportunities for virtuoso display for all they are worth.
On the other hand the Wagner selection is basically a transcription of the “Liebestod,” which manages to take into account most of the significant contributions from both the vocal line and the orchestral accompaniment. One might almost say that Liszt had no need to add his own embellishments or elaborations. Requiring the pianist to give a faithful account of Wagner was sufficient; and, if some of the Lisztian ventures that Grunberg had offered earlier in the program verged on the ridiculous, this account of the final measures of Tristan und Isolde was unquestionable sublime.
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