Liszt/ Kanazawa/ Admony - Complete Piano Music 29

The first of Liszt's twelve symphonic poems, Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne was based on Victor Hugo, and the second, Tasso, on Goethe and Byron. The third, Les Préludes, was originally designed as an introduction to Les quatre éléments by Joseph Autran, choral settings of four poems, La terre, Les aquilons, Les flots and Les astres. These were abandoned and a connection with Lamartine's Nouvelles méditations poétiques was suggested only after the revision of the original overture for performance in Weimar in 1854. One of the best known of Liszt's symphonic poems, Les Préludes makes use of the process of thematic metamorphosis, unkindly castigated by Hanslick as 'the life and adventures of a theme', in which a single theme, modified and transformed, becomes the basis for the unity of the whole work. The orchestral score of Les Préludes, with Liszt's own version for two pianos, was published in Leipzig in 1856. Mazeppa is based on a poem by Victor Hugo. Joachim Raff had a hand in the orchestration of the original work in 1851, but it was revised in 1854 by Liszt. The narrative reflected in the work concerns the Cossack leader Mazeppa, bound naked to the back of a wild horse, after detection in an amorous intrigue in his native Poland, but rescued by Ukrainian peasants, whose leader he became in battles between Charles XII of Sweden, whom he supported against Peter the Great. The score and two-piano version were published in Leipzig in 1857. Die Ideale, the twelfth of the symphonic poems, takes it's inspiration from Schiller's poem of the same name, drawing attention to it's source by including quotations from the poem in the score of a work intended as a tribute to Grand Duke Carl August, the patron of Goethe and Schiller, whose centenary fell in 1857. The opening slow introduction marks the disappearance of youthful joys and ideals, after which the ambitions of youth, with it's ideals of love, truth, fortune and fame are recalled. Disillusion is followed by new hope in friendship and fulfillment in work. The whole ends with faith in the ideal, the highest aim in life, with what Liszt described as a final apotheosis added to Schiller's poem, recalling the motifs of the first main section. The score and two-piano version were published in 1858.