Utah Symphony

Instrumentation: 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, strings
Duration: 16 minutes in one movement.

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. Though he never became a priest, he did officially enter the clergy’s lower orders on April 25, 1865 and was known as “Abbot” Liszt for the rest of his days. Intriguingly, his death-obsessed showpiece for piano and orchestra Totentanz had premiered just ten days earlier at The Hague.     

THE MUSIC – The close timing of the premiere and the tonsure, though historically fascinating, was incidental. Liszt had begun work on Totentanz as far back as 1838 and did not consider it “completed” until 1849, a date that lost some of its significance after at least two revisions by the composer in the late 1850s. This long gestation period was not abnormal for Liszt and his two piano concerti endured a similarly drawn out process. There are contrasting versions of the story concerning Liszt’s inspiration for Totentanz. Some, including at least one biographer, claim that Liszt was motivated by a 14th century fresco he saw while visiting the city of Pisa, a work known as The Triumph of Death. It has also been posited that the he met his muse in a series of illustrations by Hans Holbein with the more pertinent title of The Dance of Death (or Totentanz). Whatever the case, Mediaeval Europe was obsessed with everything related to death and Romantic Era Europe was obsessed with everything related to Mediaeval Europe so macabre source material like Holbein’s work and the Pisa fresco would have been abundant and of timely interest during Liszt’s day. The thematic basis for the music of Totentanz is the plainchant “Dies irae,” upon which several intense variations are set. Liszt claimed a place among good company with the choice. Berlioz had already used the theme in his Symphonie Fantastique and Rachmaninoff would employ it often years later.         

THE WORLD – 1865 was an eventful year. The Civil War ended in America but President Lincoln was assassinated just days later. The Matterhorn was summated for the first time. And the Salvation Army was founded in England.

THE CONNECTION – Totentanz has not appeared on the Utah Symphony Masterworks Series since 2002 when Sergio Tiempo was featured as soloist and Keri-Lynn Wilson conducted. 

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubles piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, strings
Duration: 21 minutes in four movements (played without pause)

THE COMPOSER – FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) – Liszt spent the 1850s in Weimar and created some of his finest works there. The composer settled there (an odd choice for his stature) because of two important people, his employer and his second great love. With Grand Duke Carl Alexander, Liszt hoped he might found an intellectual “Athens of the North” and in the Princess Carolyne he saw nothing less than his future wife. Neither dream would be realized.   

THE MUSIC – The unconventionally constructed 2nd Piano Concerto was premiered at Weimar in 1857. Liszt’s pupil Hans von Bronsart, the dedicatee of the work, served as soloist and the composer himself conducted. The piece itself had already lived a rather long life. Liszt began work on it back in 1839 and put it on the shelf in 1840. He would not address it again for another ten years, after which he began a process of periodic revision that didn’t end until 1861, four years after the first performance. It is interesting that the composer himself called the work a “Symphonic Concerto” in his manuscripts, indicating that he envisioned from the start a piece that would be different from the typical concerto structure of his time. Like his 1st Concerto, the 2nd progresses from movement to movement without pause and, in fact, doesn’t have movements at all in the traditional sense but rather a series of contrasting “sections” that treat the opening theme to several interesting transformations. It was a compositional technique that Liszt was fond of throughout his career. Unlike its older sibling, the 2nd Concerto is, to the extent that any work by Liszt can be called so, almost subtle. Both concerti are flashy and difficult, filled with pianistic pyrotechnics but No. 1 seems designed only to dazzle. It is music that, according to essayist Michael Steinberg, is fit for an “expert keyboard athlete” while No. 2 is for “poets only.”

THE WORLD – Two popular holiday songs where written in 1857 – “We Three Kings of Orient Are” by Rev. John Hopkins and “Jingle Bells” by James Pierpont. 1857 was also the year of the Dred Scott Decision and the publication of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

THE CONNECTION – Liszt’s 2nd Piano Concerto was most recently performed by the Utah Symphony in 2002 with then Principal Guest Conductor Pavel Kogan on the podium and Hea Jung Cho as soloist.

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubles piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, suspended cymbal, harp, strings

Duration: 11 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) – Liszt, in 1859, was a sad and frustrated man. He lost his son Daniel that December. His time as Kapellmeister in the court of the Grand Duke of Weimar was plagued by “jealousies” and “ineptitudes.” And his beloved Carolyne was still struggling bitterly to get an annulment of her marriage to Prince Nicholas of Russia. It is little wonder that his will dates from this period (1860).  

THE MUSIC – Though Liszt wrote four Mephisto Waltzes during his life, it is the first of them that remains the most popular of the set and possibly the most beloved work of his entire catalogue. So greatly does the popularity of this waltz outshine the other three that the designation of “No. 1” has become nearly irrelevant for today’s concertgoers. The Mephistopheles character that inspired the waltzes (as well as his earlier, similarly-influenced Piano Sonata and epic Symphony) came not from Goethe’s Faust but another version of the legend by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau. Liszt originally conceived Mephisto Waltz No. 1 as the latter part of his two movement Episodes from Lenau’s “Faust.” The Nocturnal Procession (1st movement) is now rarely played but the famous waltz enjoys its everlasting life in three versions: orchestral, piano duet and piano solo. The story implied by the subtitle involves Mephistopheles and Faust coming upon a wedding celebration already in progress. Mephistopheles talks Faust into taking part in the festivities and while Mephistopheles entrances the townspeople with his fiddle playing, Faust begins to dance with one of the village beauties. Their amorous waltz spins them right out of the room, out of town and off into the forest while the sounds of the fiddle fade away. Liszt composed two endings for the piece, one which mirrors the above story faithfully and another, more common option that builds to a boisterous climax.  

THE WORLD – Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities in 1859. Also in that year, the chimes of Big Ben sounded for the first time, Abolitionist John Brown launched his raid on Harpers Ferry and Gounod premiered his operatic version of the Faust story.