Funérailles is the 7th piece in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses

Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is a cycle of piano pieces written by Liszt at Woronińce in 1847...

(Poetic and Religious Harmonies), a collection of piano pieces by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

. It was an elegy written in October 1849 in response to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848

Hungarian Revolution of 1848

The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many of the European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas...

 by the Habsburgs.

Funérailles is perhaps the most famous of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, having been recorded by pianists such as Claudio Arrau

Claudio Arrau

Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...

, Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz    was a Russian-American classical virtuoso pianist and minor composer. His technique and use of tone color and the excitement of his playing were legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Life and early...

, Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...

, John Ogdon

John Ogdon

John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...

, Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich is an Argentine pianist.-Early life:Argerich was born in Buenos Aires and started playing the piano at age three...

, Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Childhood:...

, Arnaldo Cohen

Arnaldo Cohen

-Biography:Cohen graduated in Engineering from the Federal University, Cohen also studied violin and piano and started his professional career as a violinist of the Rio de Janeiro Opera House Orchestra...

, and Krystian Zimerman

Krystian Zimerman

Krystian Zimerman is a Polish classical pianist who is widely regarded as one of the finest living pianists.-Biography:...

.

Composition

The piece is composed of four distinct sections, with three main themes repeating throughout. The first section, labeled "Introduzione," is a dark and gloomy adagio movement whose opening bars represent the sound of muffled bells from across a dreary battlefield. Its forlorn right-hand chords are offset by thundering, sforzando

Sforzando

Sforzando may refer to:*Sforzando, used in musical notation as an instruction to play a note with sudden, strong emphasis *Sforzando , a "pirate orchestra" from Melbourne, Australia, named after the musical term...

 left-hand tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

s, which are interrupted and calmed into submission by the sudden call of battle trumpets, leading into the piece's next theme.

In its second section, the piece presents a somber F-minor funeral march that modulates into a stunning lagrimoso A♭-major melody, relying heavily on augmented fifths to convey what can be viewed as a sort of dismal sense of hope.

The piece then leads into a heroic, powerful warrior march, whose valiant and triumphant chords are backed by powerful cascades of ostinato

Ostinato

In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...

octaves in the bass. This theme builds in intensity until it reaches a fortissimo peak, at which point it breaks suddenly into its conclusion.

It is in this conclusion that Liszt reintroduces each theme from the piece, beginning with the funeral march theme, this time more powerful and emphatic. He then briefly reiterates parts of the A♭-major theme before bringing back the left-hand octave-driven warrior march. However, rather than allowing this theme's intensity to take control again, he limits its duration and ends the piece with a sudden drop into quiet, open staccatissimo

Staccatissimo

In musical notation, staccatissimo indicates that the notes are to be played extremely separated and distinct, a superlative staccato. This can be notated with little pikes over or under the notes, depending on stem direction, as in this example from Bruckner's Symphony No...

 chords.

History and significance

Funérailles is subtitled "October 1849". This has often been interpreted as a sort of funeral speech for Liszt's friend Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, who died on 17 October 1849, and also due to fact that the piece's left-hand octaves seem to echo the central section of Chopin's epic Heroic Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53.

However, Liszt said that it was not written with Chopin in mind, but was instead meant as a tribute to three of his friends who died in the failed Hungarian uprising against Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 rule in 1848. They were Prince Felix Lichnowsky

Felix Lichnowsky

Felix Lichnowsky, fully Felix Maria Vincenz Andreas Fürst von Lichnowsky, Graf von Werdenberg was a son of the historian Eduard Lichnowsky who had written a history of the Habsburg family....

, Count László Teleki

László Teleki

Count László Teleki IV de Szék was a Hungarian writer and statesman. He is remembered as the author of the drama Kegyencz ....

 and the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Lajos Batthyány

Lajos Batthyány

Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár was the first Prime Minister of Hungary. He was born in Pressburg on 10 February 1807, and was executed by firing squad in Pest on 6 October 1849, the same day as the 13 Martyrs of Arad.-Career:His father was Count József Sándor Batthyány , his mother Borbála...

. Batthyány was executed on 6 October 1849 for his part in the uprising.