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...

 composed his Orpheus in 1853-4, numbering it No. 4 in his cycle of 12 symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

s written during his time in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was first performed on February 16, 1854, conducted by the composer, as an introduction to the first Weimar performance of Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

's opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 Orfeo ed Euridice

Orfeo ed Euridice

Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...

. The performance helped celebrate the birthday of Weimar's Grand Duchess Maria Pawlowna, who was an amateur musician and a staunch supporter of Liszt at Weimar.

Overview

Program

Orpheus is one of four symphonic poems Liszt composed as character sketches

Character piece

Character piece is a literal translation of the German Charakterstück, a term, not very precisely defined, used for a broad range of 19th century piano music based on a single idea or program...

 of men of creative genius, heroism or legend. (The other three poems are Tasso

Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo (Liszt)

Franz Liszt composed his Tasso, Lamento e trionfo in 1849, revising it in 1850-51 and again in 1854. It is numbered No. 2 in his cycle of 13 symphonic poems written during his Weimar period.-Composition:...

, Prometheus

Prometheus (Liszt)

Franz Liszt composed his Prometheus in 1850, numbering it No. 5 in his cycle of symphonic poems when he revised it in 1855. The work is based on the Greek myth, Prometheus and is numbered S.99 in the Searle catalogue.-Composition:...

and Mazeppa.) In his preface Liszt describes an Etruscan

Etruscan art

Etruscan art was the form of figurative art produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta and cast bronze, wall-painting and metalworking .-History:The origins of...

 vase depicting Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

, then extols civilizing effect on humanity. This reference to the ennobling effect of Orpheus and his art may have been derived from the Orpheus depicted by the Lyon philosopher Pierre-Simon Ballanche

Pierre-Simon Ballanche

Pierre-Simon Ballanche was a French writer and counterrevolutionary philosopher, who elaborated a theology of progress that possessed considerable influence in French literary circles in the beginning of the nineteenth century...

 in Orphée in 1829. By introducing civilised laws, the Orpheus of this nine-volume work leads humanity into the modern age; this was intended by Ballanche to provide a new philosophy for all of Europe. Liszt was an acquaintance and supporter of Ballanche, and Liszt's enthusiasm was shared by members of the French salons during the 1830s, especially by George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

.

Instrumentation

Especially noteworthy is Orpheus's instrumentation, which includes two harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

s; their representation of Orpheus's lyre in the opening 14 bars immediately focuses the listener's attention on this instrument. Harpist Jeanne Pohl, one of the new virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 players brought to Weimar by Liszt to augment the court orchestra, inspired the composer to pen these effects.

Structure

Orpheus is not a long work and takes the form of a gradual crescendo

Crescendo

-In music:*Crescendo, a passage of music during which the volume gradually increases, see Dynamics * Crescendo , a Liverpool-based electronic pop band* "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue", one of Duke Ellington's longer-form compositions...

 followed by a quiet ending which returns to the mood of the opening. Unlike many of Liszt's other symphonic poems, the music here remains largely contemplative. For this reason, it became a favorite piece of Liszt's son-in-law, the composer Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

.

Formally, Orpheus is a modified sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

 with a secondary key area containing two themes. The second theme lacks the energy of the first, remaining a static motif

Leitmotif

A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

 hovering over oscillating major and minor harmonies. Nevertheless, it contains an especially poignant quality. This theme is presented by various solo instruments to a primarily harp accompaniment. The orchestration, together with the style, suggests an interpretation of this theme as Orpheus' voice.

The ethereal, chromatic

Chromaticism

Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...

 ascent in the final bars attenuates any decisive closure that could be expected from a more conventional harmonic

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

resolution. Combined with the closing theme of the second group, this ends the work as a cryptic vision which recalls the final moments of Ballanche's story. There the story's narrator, Thamyris, witnesses Orpheus disappearing into the clouds, leaving mankind the task of developing his teachings of civilisation.