Franz Liszt was the son of a disappointed musician who served as land steward to the noble Esterházy family of Hungary. After he showed prodigious talent as a pianist at the age of nine, a group of Hungarian counts subscribed a six-years’ annuity to the boy’s family for him to study in Vienna. Liszt started giving successful piano recitals at the age of 12, became a salon idol as a young man, and later won recognition throughout Europe as the first of the great piano virtuosos. After the age of 40, however, he stopped playing publicly except on rare special occasions, and concentrated on conducting and composing. As a composer, Liszt is best known for his two piano concertos, some nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano, of which six exist in orchestral versions as well, and a dozen symphonic poems ( the third of which will be performed tonight).
Les Préludes (Symphonic Poem No.3) is the best known and most popular of Liszt’s symphonic poems. It is a colorful, dramatic work expressing Romantic musical ideas, but with an unexplicit “program” that permits the listener great freedom in interpreting the meaning. Originally written in 1848 as a prelude to a choral work. The Four Elements, it was revised several times in succeeding years, until it reached its final form in 1854 as an independent orchestral work.
Although Liszt used some of the thematic material of The Four Elements, he related the final version to the poem Les Préludes from Lamartine’s Méditations Poétiques (Poetic Meditations): …what is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded only by death? “Liszt depicts man’s struggle for existence through various interconnected episodes: first, love (“The enchanted Daybreak”), then the harshness of the real world (“Storms Whose Killing Breath Dispel Lovely Illusion”), a pastoral interlude (“A Pleasant Rest Amidst Nature’s Moods”), a call to battle (“The Trumpets’ Loud Clangor… The Post of Danger…”) and finally, self-recognition. Shop here
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