The dramatic front corner of Alice Tull Hall at Lincoln Center
When Franz Liszt composed each of the three volumes of what he ultimately called the Annees de Pelerinage he was at different places in his life. Each volume reflects a different kind of pilgrimage and any performance of all three volumes or books, an extremely rare event, must take these different pilgrimages in mind. This is probably the most difficult aspect of performing the entire work.
The first volume,"Switzerland," reflects a pilgrimage away from the cities of his youth, Vienna and Paris, into the Swiss countryside. Beginning with the largely diatonic C major "Chapelle de Guillaume Tell," Liszt's musical journey elevates the simple life through the yodeling melodies of "Au lac de Wallenstadt" and the rustic dance that is the "Pastorale" Vivid scenes from nature are evoked in "Au borde d'une source" and "Orage." The volume culminates with the epic ballad "Vallee d'Obermann" before completing the set with "Eglogue," "Le mal du Pays" and finally "Les cloches de Geneve: Nocturne." With the final piece, Liszt has arrived at a new place in his life, having become a father of a daughter, Blandine. His first pilgrimage is complete. The pianist this evening, Louis Lortie, captured the essence of each piece with color and imagination, and when needed, courage and drama.
With the second volume, "Italy," Liszt undertakes a pilgrimage of the mind. Rather than viewing the external world, he is now coming face to face with creations by some of the greatest Italian artists and writers, Raphael, Michelangelo, Salvator Rosa, Petrarch and Dante. In these works, the narrative joins the descriptive in these contemplations on not only great works but the ideas behind the great works. Here, Mr. Lortie became the story teller and, in the case of the "Dante Sonata," a powerful dramatic speaker in evocation of Dante's vivid description of hell. Increased musical complexity parallels the increased complexity of the subject matter. The Dante Sonata, while most assuredly the most exciting and dramatic work of the set, ends the set on a different emotional and psychological tone than the other works of this set, except perhaps for “Il penseroso.” Should the listener’s shared pilgrimage with Liszt end this way? For more thought on this we must look ahead to the third volume.
When we arrive at the third volume--the one with no title-- we come to the most problematic set of the three and most difficult pilgrimage for Liszt. He composed these works late in his life while suffering from bouts of depression brought on by a number of important things. First, his youngest child, Daniel, died. Liszt was facing his own mortality coming to believe that his main link to earthly immortality,his music, might evaporate and be relegated to oblivion. Always struggling between the lures of the secular world and the consolation and affirmation of the sacred world, Liszt took minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church.
The third volume is a pilgrimage of the soul. It begins and concludes with clear religious themes. Two of the inner works are called "Threnodies" or laments and are intensely dark and private. Two other works grieve over the deep despair of a dear friend (Hans von Bulow, whose wife, and Liszt's second daughter, left him to spend her life with Richard Wagner) and the death by execution of the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. The main bright spot in this set is the wonderful "Les jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este," a work that is often performed as brilliant example of "water music" and whose spiritual meaning is overlooked.
Mr. Lortie doubtless wrestled with this set the most of any of the three, as anyone would. As such a private work, it seems not to belong on the concert stage but in a small setting such as a black-box theatre. Performing this set after the first two seems to make perfectly good sense, given the biographical nature of the entire set and the the fact that the first piece of the third set, "Angelus! Priere aux anges gardiens" is most assuredly a response to the "Dante Sonata" which concludes the second volume. However, the intense, introspective and private qualities of this volume require listeners to be absolutely engaged, something that most would probably not be capable of, having listened to almost two hours of piano music prior to the third set. It does, however, point in some ways the general tendency of late nineteenth century music to make the final portions of large-scale works the weightiest and most demanding. Should the final volume be viewed as a culminating volume?
Mr. Lortie's decision was to conclude the first part of the program with the first four pieces of the third set and then begin the second part of the program with the final three pieces of the third set. While this decision might be viewed as terribly disruptive and even a bow to philistine sensibilities, there is some justification for this decision. First, placing these pieces in the middle of the program, while ears and minds are still fresh, makes their comprehension more likely. Second, by dividing the set up and allowing a period of time for listeners to decompress a little, the final pieces of the second set can be heard more meaningfully.
What remained the biggest challenge for Mr. Lortie was to communicate the radically different perspective of this set to the audience in a large concert setting, a nearly impossible task. He did capture the restless, brooding and improvisatory qualities of the two threnodies as well as the threnody for Hans von Bulow. However, the final work of the set (and, indeed, the intended final work of the entire cycle), the "Sursum corda" might have more fully conveyed Liszt's internalization of the liturgy and revealed, as a priest, his genuine thankfulness to God for all that he had been through, light and dark. The volume ends on a note of submission and acceptance as opposed to triumph or dramatic denoument. A successful rendering of this set, and especially the final piece, requires the skill of a gifted actor, something I am not sure Mr. Lortie possesses, as musically attentive and technically assured as he is.
One might ask the question of whether Liszt should have indeed had this music published, especially as part of the entire Annees de Pelerinage. Did he expect the third volume to be performed on the concert stage, revealing not the inner experiences of someone else but, rather, himself? This also raises the larger issue of matching the performance of a given work with a particular of venue. What effect does the performance space have on choices made by the performer and on the meaning of the work for the listener?
It was a real opportunity to get to experience such a major contribution to the piano repertoire performed by such a thoughtful, committed artist. The challenges he faced would have proved problematic for any pianist and their responses to these challenges might have been different but not necessarily more successful.
It was a real opportunity to get to experience such a major contribution to the piano repertoire performed by such a thoughtful, committed artist. The challenges he faced would have proved problematic for any pianist and the responses might have been different but not necessarily more successful.
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