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Tag: Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt Underrated Genius Radio Tribute

He is one of history’s most influential and undersold composers.

A champion of program music (music intended to express extramusical ideas), the inventor of the symphonic poem, a pioneer of structural innovation, and an explorer of strange new harmonies, Franz Liszt seldom gets the credit he deserves. By contrast, a composer like Richard Wagner (Liszt’s son-in-law) is revered for the “Tristan chord,” a kind of shot-heard-‘round-the-world that is said to have changed music. It’s seldom noted that it was but one of the ideas Wagner “borrowed” from Liszt.

As a conductor, Liszt’s energetic promotion of composers like Hector Berlioz and Wagner – then a political fugitive – marred with scandal and intrigues his tenure at the Weimar court. For his pains, he was frequently attacked by critics, derided by his peers, and undercut by his own showmanship.

No one seems to contest that he was one of the most remarkable pianists who ever lived, but the assessment is often tempered by charges of vulgarity, of crass pandering to sensation and to the mob.

Liszt played benefit concerts for victims of flood and fire, as well as for political refugees, spearheaded the creation of a monument to and festival for Beethoven in Bonn, never charged a fee for his lessons to his many pupils, and selflessly promoted the works of others, including (beside Berlioz and Wagner) Grieg, Smetana, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, and Borodin.

This is the thanks he gets?

At the very least, I think he deserves three hours of airplay on his birthday. I hope you’ll join me this afternoon for a mix of piano and orchestral works, choral music and lieder, and transcriptions and fantasies of famous works by other composers.

It will be an all-Liszt playlist, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 22, 2018
Happy Feast Day Saint Francis of Assisi

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi.

If saints are your thing, you‘d be hard pressed to find one more beloved than St. Francis – unless you’ve misplaced your car keys, in which case St. Anthony is your man. I count myself fortunate in that I was able to visit Francis’ hometown before the devastating earthquakes of 1997.

Be sure to take a moment today to kiss your pet. Bless all animals! Then enjoy some of the music below.

Franz Liszt’s “Saint Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds” (piano)

Liszt’s “Saint Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds” (orchestra)

Francis Poulenc’s “Quatre petites prières de saint François d’Assise”

Paul Hindemith’s “Nobilissima Visione” (suite, conducted by the composer)

Hindemith’s “Nobilissima Visione” (rarely-heard complete version)

October 4, 2018
Alexandre Dumas Music on The Lost Chord

He is best known as the author of “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo.” However, Alexandre Dumas churned out historically-inspired prose on all manner of subjects, and he did so by the yard.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we present an hour of music inspired by his works, including rarely-heard incidental music, written for a revival of the play, “Caligula,” by Gabriel Fauré; ballet music from an opera, “Ascanio,” taken from a novel featuring Benvenuto Cellini, by Camille Saint-Saëns; and a poetic monologue, “Joan of Arc at the Stake,” by Franz Liszt. We’ll also hear the suite for symphonic band, “The Three Musketeers,” by George Wiliam Hespe.

I hope you’ll join me for “The Lost Sword.” It’s all for one, and one for all, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 29, 2018
Liszt the Saint Composer’s Sacred Side

While the adjective “diabolical” could be applied to Franz Liszt, both in terms of his prowess as a pianist and as a ladies’ man, its application might be justified, really, by only two aspects of his outsized personality.

Liszt was an especially complex individual, marked by much nobility of character. He was a generous human being, a humanitarian, and an all-around nice guy. He was also quite devout. It was his intention to marry his long-time companion, the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, on his 50th birthday, but his hopes were dashed, after the Church refused to grant her an annulment (she had been estranged from her husband long before she met the handsome touring virtuoso). He reacted by taking minor orders and living in a monastic cell in Rome, where he became known as the Abbé Liszt. (He had also recently lost two of his three children born to him by Marie d’Agoult.)

Liszt’s religiosity was not something he wore lightly. From an early age, he felt certain he would be a musician or a priest. In the end, he became both.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll sample from two of at least seven of Liszt’s works inspired by his fascination with the saints – “The Legend of St. Elisabeth” and “St. Stanislaus.” St. Elisabeth was the Hungarian princess much concerned with the welfare of the poor, and St. Stanislaus is the patron saint of Poland. These are the subjects of Liszt’s first and last oratorios.

I hope you’ll join me for “Liszt of Saints,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

March 25, 2018
Liszt’s Diabolical Dances Temptation & Piano Fire

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was quite the complex personality. He was a devout Catholic his entire life, even taking minor orders and living in a monastery for a few years at middle age. However, as one of the performer-superstars of his youth, he was also frequently tempted by the pleasures of the flesh. And, as Oscar Wilde observed, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

Like many artists of the Romantic era, Liszt was consumed by the supernatural allure and philosophical wranglings of Goethe’s “Faust.” Perhaps something in the Faustian character appealed to him more than most. In his pursuit of loftier ideals, Liszt was certainly aware of his feet of clay. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll examine the tension between striving artist and earthly pleasures through an hour of Liszt’s diabolical dances.

We’ll sample from his “Mephisto Waltzes” (all except the first, which is so very well known); also, a “Mephisto Polka,” the “Czardas Macabre,” and a couple of operatic paraphrases, on “Robert le Diable” (treated as a “valse infernale”) and the waltz from Gounod’s “Faust.”

Some of these are straight-ahead knuckle-busters, full of hair-raising keyboard acrobatics; others aim to gently unsettle, employing the interval of a tritone – known for centuries as “the devil in music” – or blurring into a kind of tonal ambiguity that foreshadows some of the experimental music of the 20th century.

Liszt, a profound thinker and a grand provocateur, was always questing. That said, he seldom undersold the visceral thrill of a precipitous piano run or the simple pleasure of a good tune.

Get ready to surrender to temptation with “A Fistful of Mephistos” – an hour diabolical dances by Franz Liszt, on his birthday – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 22, 2017

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