Playing With Wolfgang: Fliszt
I was a practical child. I always needed to know what something was for. My favorite question was why? My Dad sang a popular nonsense song to me when I was 6 or 7 and I remember how frustrated he was that I didn’t understand the silliness and wanted to try to make sense of it.
Fast forward 12 years or so…
It was a given that my first encounter with Liszt was going to be stressful. After all he was the master of impracticality—of playing simply because you could. I was the mistress of practicality. The piece was the famous Sonetto del Petrarca 104, often given to students as a gateway to the music of Liszt.
I, however, had no basis for understanding or making sense of it. I studied the piece for months and could never make music from it. The combination of my woeful lack of technique, the fact that I had not heard a great deal of classical music except that which I had played, and the practical Lutheran side of my personality lead to a spectacular failure.
It was the first time I was put face to face with the fact that I was sadly bereft of life experience—that I was, in fact, somewhat shallow and so was my playing. These face-offs (as I like to call them) can be devastating and this one was truly life changing. I was forced out into the world of music and the world in general to experience them and use that experience in my playing. I still base my teaching on that life lesson today.
Fast forward thirty-some years…
In my 40s, I again had an encounter with Liszt in the form of his 2 Concert Etudes: Waldesrauschen and Gnomenreigen. The experience couldn’t have been more different. I loved the pieces and could not get enough. We had a kitten at the time who, when he heard the Waldesrauschen, would joyfully thunder from one end of our large ranch house to the other. I like to think he picked up on some of my joy.
Fast forward again…
Today, I am teaching these pieces to a high school student and it has been a joy to rediscover them and see them through her eyes. Together we have explored the metaphors of light and darkness and the brutality of nature in the first and the sheer joy of living in the second.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from and about Liszt:
It’s Fliszt not F. Liszt. You don’t say M. Ozart do you? (V. Borge)
The public is always good.
A person of any mental capacity always has ideas of his own. This is common sense.
Truth is a great flirt.
Brahms’ Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.
(F. Liszt)
I should like to rob him of his way of treating my own etudes. (F. Chopin)
He masters the piano like a demon (I can’t put it any other way…) but oh, his compositions, they were simply too dreadful. (C. Schumann)
This is Liszt. He’s really a bad guy. It’s really a bit scary. You’re too nice. (L. Lang)
Here is a link to a great post from NPR in which famous pianists chime in on Liszt and “list” their favs.
I would start with a theme that you are comfortable with and work outward from there. Try some of the transcriptions–Bach, Schubert, etc. There are some cool ones that you rarely hear because transcriptions were not valued for a while there. I particularly like Auf Dem Wasser Su Singen. Some are quite impressionistic like the Waldesrauschen above.You get the feeling of the song or work in his transcriptions not just a note by note translation to the piano. If you enjoy music played for the sheer joy of it go with pieces like the Rhapsodies or the Gnomenrieigen above. There are quite mystical religious pieces and of course, some very gothic ones. Thank goodness the internet makes it easy to look up texts.
If you’re knowledgeable about his stuff, what’s a good example of something by him that’s more baby than bathwater? Where might I start?
As a “good girl” I found much of the content shocking and embarrassing when I was young. I was unpardonably naive and sheltered. Some of it I still find not to my taste but I can at least understand and put it into context (and not throw out the baby with the bathwater).
I’m afraid I have to agree with Clara. 🙂 His compositions make me think of Evel Knievel jumping over buses. Yes, very impressive … why am I listening again? Like Paganini — his caprices are fun as hell to listen to but ultimately they don’t say much. Or like that fast-talking dude from the Federal Express commercial from the 80s. He doesn’t say anything interesting, but he can say it fast. And it’s not just that his music is a knuckle-buster. Rachmaninoff’s is just as hard and I can’t play either of them, but I love listening to Rach’s stuff.
I think sometimes I should give Liszt’s stuff a closer listen just to see if I’m not unfairly judging him based on the way he’s presented as a speed-demon exercise.