![]() THE MUSIC – The close timing of the premiere and the tonsure, though historically fascinating, was incidental. Intriguingly, his death-obsessed showpiece for piano and orchestra Totentanz had premiered just ten days earlier at The Hague. Though he never became a priest, he did officially enter the clergy’s lower orders on Apand was known as “Abbot” Liszt for the rest of his days. THE COMPOSER – FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) – In the early 1860s, the crushing disappointments of Liszt’s personal life forced him to seriously consider the solace and rigor of monastic life. Notable performers īesides the performances by Hans von Bülow, Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Ferruccio Busoni, performances of historic significance include those of the Liszt student José Vianna da Motta (1945 - Port Nat S IPL 108), as well as Georges Cziffra (EMI 74012 2), Claudio Arrau, Jorge Bolet (Decca), Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli(1961 - Arkadia HP 507.1 1962 - Memoria 999-001), Michel Béroff (EMI Classics), Byron Janis (RCA), Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman (Deutsche Grammophon), Arnaldo Cohen (Naxos and BIS), and Raymond Lewenthal.Instrumentation: 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, strings It shows to great effect the breadth of the Totentanz, when distributed evenly between two performers. Andrey Kasparov has since re-imagined this setting as a work for piano duo. Edited by Emil von Sauer, the original edition for two pianos, however, merely incorporated the solo part of Liszt's rendering for piano and orchestra, with a transcription of the orchestral accompaniment in the second piano. Liszt also wrote versions for two pianos and solo piano. The standard version is the final third version of the piece (1859). Besides the first version of the Totentanz a De Profundis version has been prepared from manuscript sources by Ferruccio Busoni (1919). Like most Liszt pieces, a number of versions exist. Richard Pohl (an early biographer) notes, "Every variation discloses some new character-the earnest man, the flighty youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child." Extant versions ![]() Other modernistic features are the toccata like sections where the pianist’s repeated notes beat with diabolic intensity and special sound effects in the orchestra-for example, the col legno in the strings sound like shuddering or clanking bones. This may be no coincidence since Bartók frequently performed Liszt’s Totentanz. The opening comes surprisingly close to the introduction in Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, a work composed almost a hundred years later. Since it is based on Gregorian material, Liszt’s Totentanz contains Medieval sounding passages with canonic counterpoint, but by far the most innovative aspect of the scoring is the shockingly modernistic, even percussive, nature of the piano part. Revisions followed in 18, and its final form was first performed at The Hague on 15 April 1865 by Liszt’s student Hans von Bülow, to whom the work is dedicated. Only ten years later, Liszt’s first sketches materialized into a complete version of his Totentanz. Liszt had eloped to Italy with his mistress, the Countess d’Agoult, and in 1838 he visited Pisa. Liszt’s Totentanz (Dance of Death), a set of variations for piano and orchestra, also paraphrases the Dies Irae plainsong.Īnother source of inspiration for the young Liszt was the famous fresco "Triumph of Death" by Francesco Traini(at Liszt's time attributed to Andrea Orcagna and today also to Buonamico Buffalmacco) in the Campo Santo, Pisa. In 1830 Liszt attended the first performance of the symphony and was struck by its powerful originality. ![]() A musical example of such irony can be found in the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz which quotes the medieval (Gregorian) Dies Irae ( Day of Judgment) melody in a shockingly modernistic manner. In the Romantic age, due to a fascination with everything Medieval, the aspect of fantastic or grotesquely macabre irony often replaced the original moral intent. The Dance of Death ( Totentanz) from Liber Chronicarum, 1493, attr. According to Alan Walker, Liszt frequented Parisian "hospitals, gambling casinos and asylums" in the early 1830s, and he even went down into prison dungeons in order to see those condemned to die. ![]() In the young Liszt we can already observe manifestations of his obsession with death, with religion, and with heaven and hell. Some of the titles of Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre gondola and Pensée des morts, show the composer's fascination with death.
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