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...

wrote drafts for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in A major, S.125, during his virtuoso period, in 1839 to 1840. He then put away the manuscript for a decade. When he returned to the concerto, he revised and scrutinized it repeatedly. The fourth and final period of revision ended in 1861. Liszt dedicated the work to his student Hans von Bronsart

Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff

Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff was a classical musician and composer who studied under Franz Liszt....

, who gave the first performance, with Liszt conducting, 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...

 on January 7, 1857.

This concerto typically lasts about 20 minutes.

Instrumentation

The concerto is scored for solo piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, three flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s (one doubling piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

), two oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, two clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, two bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, two horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, two trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, three trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s, tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, cymbal

Cymbal

Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

s and string

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

s.

Form

This concerto is one single, long movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

, divided into six sections that are connected by transformations of several themes:

• Adagio sostenuto assai

  The key musical idea of this concerto comes at the beginning. Quietly yet confidently, half a dozen woodwinds, no more than five at a time, play a sequence of two chords—an A major

  A major

  A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps.Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor...

  
   chord with a C sharp on top, then a dominant seventh on F natural

  F (musical note)

  F is a musical note, the fourth above C. It is also known as fa in fixed-do solfège.When calculated in equal temperament with a reference of A above middle C as 440 Hz, the frequency of Middle F is approximately 349.228 Hz. See pitch for a discussion of historical variations in...

  
  . The first chord sounds very ordinary. The second opens possibilities unhinted by what preceded it. One note connects the two chords—an A

  A (musical note)

  La or A is the sixth note of the solfège. "A" is generally used as a standard for tuning. When the orchestra tunes, the oboe plays an "A" and the rest of the instruments tune to match that pitch. Every string instrument in the orchestra has an A string, from which each player can tune the rest of...

  
  . This sequence sounds colorful and strange yet inevitable and easily grasped.

• Allegro agitato assai

  This is technically the scherzo

  Scherzo

  A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...

  
   of the piece. It starts in B-flat minor and ends in C-sharp minor.

• Allegro moderato

  This section contains a great deal of lyricism and proceeds at an unhurried pace. Among its charms is a metamorphosis of the opening theme, played by solo cello while accompanied by the piano, showing the influence of Italian bel canto

  Bel canto

  Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...

  
   on Liszt's work.

• Allegro deciso
• Marziale un poco meno allegro

  Yet another transformation of the gentle opening theme, this movement has also nearly always been attacked as vulgar and a betrayal of both the initial character of this theme and the concerto on the whole. American musicologist Robert Winter disagreed. He called the march "a masterstroke that demonstrates the full emotional range of thematic transformation." The march contains the force and weight needed to reestablish the home key of A major, from which the music has been moving quite far since the concerto opened.

• Allegro animato

Overview

The second concerto, while less virtuosic than the First Piano Concerto

Piano Concerto No. 1 (Liszt)

Franz Liszt composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, S.124 over a 26-year period; the main themes date from 1830, while the final version dates 1849. The concerto consists of four movements, which are performed without breaks in between, and lasts approximately 20 minutes...

, shows far more originality in form. In this respect it reveals a closer link to Liszt's better known 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 in both style and structure. Also, while the final version of the First Concerto could be considered a soloist's showpiece, the Second shows Liszt attempting to confirm his compositional talent while distancing himself from his virtuoso performance origins. Liszt is less generous with technical devices for the soloist such as scales in octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s and contrary motion

Contrary motion

In music theory, contrapuntal motion is the general movement of two melodic lines with respect to each other. In traditional four-part harmony, it is important that lines maintain their independence, an effect which can be achieved by the judicious use of the four types of contrapuntal motion:...

; instead of an overbearing 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...

, the pianist often becomes an accompanist to woodwinds and strings. The soloist does not dominate the thematic material—in fact, after the opening, the pianist never has the theme in its original form. Instead, his role is to create, or at least seem to create, inventive variations that lead the listener through a series of thematic transformation

Thematic transformation

Thematic transformation is a technique of where a leitmotif, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using Permutation , Augmentation, Diminution, and Fragmentation. It was primarily developed by Franz Liszt and his good friend Hector Berlioz...

s. The various pauses and silences are not intended breaks in the musical flow but rather as transitions in the musical discourse. "Organic unity" lends structure to the entire work.

Concerto symphonique

Liszt called this work Concerto symphonique while in manuscript. This title was borrowed from the Concertos symphoniques of Henry Charles Litolff

Henry Charles Litolff

Henry Charles Litolff was a piano virtuoso, composer of Romantic music and music publisher.Litolff was born in London, the son of a Scottish mother and an Alsatian father...

. Liszt liked not only Litolff's title but also the idea for which it stood. This concept was one of thematic metamorphosis — drawing together highly diverse themes from a single melodic source. This was a concept of which Liszt was already familiar from his study of Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's Wanderer Fantasy

Wanderer Fantasy

The Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 , popularly known as the Wanderer Fantasy, is a four-movement fantasy for solo piano composed by Franz Schubert in November 1822. It is considered Schubert's most technically demanding composition for the piano...

. Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 had also used such a device in his Ninth Symphony

Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

, transforming the "Ode to Joy" theme during the final movement. With Liszt, however, thematic transformation would become a compositional device to which he would turn time and again—in the symphonic poems, the Faust

Faust Symphony

A Faust Symphony in three character pictures , S.108, or simply the "Faust Symphony", was written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and was inspired by Johann von Goethe's drama, Faust...

 and Dante Symphonies

Dante Symphony

A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy, S.109, or simply the "Dante Symphony", is a program symphony composed by Franz Liszt. Written in the high romantic style, it is based on Dante Alighieri's journey through Hell and Purgatory, as depicted in The Divine Comedy...

, and the B minor Piano Sonata

Piano Sonata (Liszt)

The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...

.

This use of thematic transformation likewise changed Liszt's attitude toward compositional form. Compared to his contemporaries, who still used 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...

 more or less conventionally, Liszt departed from the form at times radically. Themes are shuffled into new and unexpected sequences, with their various metamorphoses showcasing kaleidoscopic contrasts.

Recapitulations became foreshortened. Codas assume developmental proportions. Three- and four-movement structures are rolled into one. Liszt's justification, as he phrased it, was, "New wine demands new bottles."

An extreme level

With his Second Piano Concerto, Liszt took the practice of creating a large-scale compositional structure from metamorphosis alone to an extreme level. Its opening lyrical melody becomes the march-theme of the finale. That theme, in turn, morphs into an impassioned theme near the end of the concerto. The theme which begins the scherzo reappears at that sections end disguised as a totally different melody in another key. This last transformation is so complete that it is easy to not recognize the connection. Key, mode, time signature, pace and tonal color have all been transformed. For Liszt to so radically alter the music's notation while remaining true to the essential idea behind it shows a tremendous amount of ingenuity on his part.

The scoring, material and layout of the Second Piano Concerto also suggest the influence of Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

's Konzertstück in F minor for piano and orchestra. Liszt was highly familiar with this work. He had played it often in his touring days, beginning in 1833. He had also made an arrangement of the piece for piano solo as well as an amended version of the solo part (which he never played himself in performance). His knowledge of the structure of this single-movement concerto was of as great an importance to his musical development as his study of the Wanderer Fantasie.

Like the First Piano Concerto, the compositional structure unfolds continually as the work progresses. With the First Piano Concerto, this structure assumes a multi-movement format fairly clearly. This does not happen in the Second Piano Concerto. Neither does it conform to a single long movement based on sonata first-movement form in the way that the B minor Piano Sonata does. Some have argued that Liszt may have been aiming for a structural intermediate between these two poles. This, they explain, is why the Second Piano Concerto can seem ambiguous structurally.

This potential sense of ambiguity becomes twofold. First, as the music unfolds, it becomes a work of many and distinct episodes following one another rapidly. This can lead to a sense of structural fragmentation, with no organic unity apparent. Second, the harmonic range becomes wider ranging. The music stays in one key just long enough to modulate

Modulate

Modulate is Bob Mould's fifth solo album, released in 2002. Although a few tracks on his previous release, The Last Dog and Pony Show, had featured tape loops and samples, Mould shocked his fans with such a dramatic embrace of electronica...

 to another key. In his essay "Liszt Misunderstood," Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

 comments on this technique:

There is something fragmentary about Liszt's work; its musical argument, perhaps by its nature, is often not brought to a conclusion. But is the fragment not the purest, the most legitimate form of Romanticism? When Utopia becomes the primary goal, when the attempt is made to contain the illimitable, then form will have to remain "open" in order that the illimitable may enter. It is the business of the interpreter to show us how a general pause may connect rather than separate two paragraphs, how a transition may mysteriously transform the musical argument. This is a magical art. By some process incomprehensible to the intellect, organic unity becomes established, the "open form" reaches its conclusions in the infinite.

Anyone who does not know the allure of the fragmentary will remain a stranger to much of Liszt's music, and perhaps to Romanticism in general.

Revision

As with the First Piano Concerto, Liszt revised the piano part considerably. In his revisions, Liszt achieved as great or greater effect than his initial concept for many passages by using simpler means. One important feature was replacing passages in broken octaves with passages for alternating hands. Liszt performed similar simplifications with the Transcendental Etudes

Transcendental Etudes

The Transcendental Etudes , S.139, are a series of twelve compositions for solo piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of a more technically difficult 1837 series, which in turn were the elaboration of a set of studies written in 1826:...

 and Grandes études de Paganini

Grandes Etudes de Paganini

The Grandes études de Paganini are a series of six études for the piano by Franz Liszt, revised in 1851 from an earlier version...

.

Performance history

Liszt was cautious about performances of the Second Piano Concerto. This stemmed mainly from his desire to protect his students from the undue wrath of critics. For instance, he wrote Johann von Herbeck, then director of the Vienna Philharmonic, "In case [pianist Hans von] Bülow

Hans von Bülow

Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...

 should make his appearance at the Philharmonic concert he will, on my advice, not play my A-major Concerto (nor any other composition of mine) but just simply one of the Bach or Beethoven concertos. My close friends know perfectly well that it is not my desire to push myself into any concert programme whatever."

This cautiousness was not always a hard-and-fast rule. The then-17-year-old Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer.-Life:Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. His father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar at the...

 played the work in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 on March 11, 1858. Tausig repeated it in Weimar on August 8, 1860 to general acclaim. This was after the incident in that city over Peter Cornelius

Peter Cornelius

Carl August Peter Cornelius was a German composer, writer about music, poet and translator. He was born and died in Mainz where his grave in the Hauptfriedhof survives....

's The Barber of Baghdad

Der Barbier von Bagdad

Der Barbier von Bagdad is a comic opera in two acts by Peter Cornelius to a German libretto by the composer, based on The Tale of the Tailor and The Barber’s Stories of his Six Brothers in A Thousand and One Nights...

 and not long before Liszt would resign as music director there.

External links

• The concerto, live on RAI
  RAI
  RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
  
  : YouTube, 1st part, 2nd part, 3rd part