Pianists and Their Composers: Franz Liszt

by Frances Wilson 

Franz Liszt divides opinion. For some he is regarded as one of the greatest pianist-composers of the Romantic era; for others, he is a showman and a charlatan who wrote vulgar, showy music.

3D rendering of Franz Liszt by Hadi Karimi

In fact, he was a remarkable musician and human being. Sure, as a performer he could be flamboyant and extravagant in his gestures, but he helped shape the modern solo piano concert as we know it today and he also brought a great deal of music to the public realm through his transcriptions (he transcribed Beethoven’s symphonies for solo piano, thus making this repertoire accessible to both concert artists and amateur pianists to play at home). He was an advocate of new music and up-and-coming composers and lent his generous support to people like Richard Wagner (who married Liszt’s daughter Cosima).

His piano music combines technical virtuosity and emotional depth. It’s true that some of his output is showy – all virtuosic flourishes for the sake of virtuosity – but his suites such as the Années de Pèlerinage or the Transcendental Etudes, and his transcriptions of Schubert songs demonstrate the absolute apogee of art, poetry, and beauty combined.

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich brings fire and fluency to her interpretations, underpinned by a remarkable technical assuredness. Her 1972 recording of the B-minor Sonata and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 is regarded as “legendary”.

Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard

Australian Leslie Howard is the only pianist to have recorded the solo piano music of Liszt, a project which includes some 300 premiere recordings, and he is rightly regarded as a specialist of this repertoire who has brought much of Liszt’s lesser-known music to the fore.  

Lazar Berman

Lazar Berman

Berman’s 1977 recording of the Années de Pèlerinage remains the benchmark recording of this repertoire for many. Berman brings sensibility and grandeur, warm-heartedness, and mastery to this remarkable set of pieces.

Alim Beisembayev

Alim Beisembayev

Winner of the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition, the young Armenian pianist Alim Beisembayev’s debut recording of the complete Transcendental Etudes is remarkable for its spellbinding polish, precision, and musical maturity, all supported by superb technique.  

Yuja Wang

Yuja Wang

Yuja Wang has been praised for her breath-taking interpretations of Liszt’s First Piano Concerto which combine force and filigree, emotional depth, and technical mastery to create thrilling and insightful performances.

On My Music Desk…… Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – ‘Deep River’

by Frances Wilson 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Deep river, my home is over Jordan;
Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground.
Oh don’t you want to go to that gospel feast,
that Promised Land where all is peace?
Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground.

African-American Spiritual

“What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies.” – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer  

There is something reminiscent of Brahms’ writing for the piano in the melody, harmonies and textures of Deep River, one of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 24 Negro Melodies, and if you didn’t know it was by this English mixed-race composer, you might mistake it for a lesser-known work by the great German romantic.

‘Deep River’ is a song about crossing boundaries, physical and metaphorical. Through the richness of the music’s textures, its simple yet memorable melody and its contrasting episodes – from serenity to restless drama – the composer suggests both the physical breadth and depth of a great river, and actual and ideological divides between peoples.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in London in 1875 and showed early musical promise. He took violin lessons from a young age and studied at the Royal College of Music from the age of 15, initially under Charles Villiers Stanford (who also taught Gustav Holst, Rebecca Clarke, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, amongst others). He was later helped by Edward Elgar. His most significant work is ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’, a cantata inspired by the poem by Longfellow and recognised alongside Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’, but he also wrote song settings (including a setting of ‘Kubla Khan’ by his near-namesake, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and chamber works.    

© Alfred Music

‘Deep River’ is one of the best-known spirituals; Coleridge-Taylor first encountered it in a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African-American acapella ensemble, which he heard in concert when they visited London. Coleridge-Taylor sought to integrate traditional African music into the classical tradition, not unlike Brahms and Dvořák in their use of Eastern European and American folk music idioms in their works. ‘Deep River’ is one of 24 Negro Melodies Transcribed for the Piano, which Coleridge-Taylor published in 1905. In general, he did not use entire folk melodies in his compositions, preferring to create fantasies based on the original melody. In ‘Deep River’, the composer uses only the first four bars of the song, and dispenses with the verse-chorus-verse organisation – though fragments of the main melody return throughout the piece.

The music opens with hushed, arpeggiated chords and the timeless melody, but it quickly moves into more ambiguous harmonic territory, and at this point becomes more redolent of Brahms. The next section departs from the original in its fantasy-like treatment of the original melody, with ornamentation and considerable expressive elements. This is followed by a dramatic interlude of up-tempo octaves, almost a fanfare, before a brief return to the original melody, and a modulation into A-flat major.

The octave fanfare returns, and the music gradually subsides, in both volume and speed, before returning to the opening melody, in the original key of E major. The piece ends in a rather Lisztian fashion, with rolling E major arpeggios, marked pianissimo, and two hushed chords.

For the pianist, the music has much scope for expression and generous use of rubato will only add to the emotional power of the piece. Treat it like a late Brahms Intermezzo, with close attention not only to the main melody but also the interior details, and you have a work of great romanticism and richness.

How music is catalogued

by Frances Wilson  

The autograph manuscript of Schubert’s Impromptu in f minor, Deutsch 935 No. 1

To help identify and organise pieces of music by a particular composer, individual compositions or sets of works are usually given an “Opus” number. The word “opus” is Latin and means “work” or “work of art”, often abbreviated as “Op.”, or “Opp.” in the plural. The practice of assigning an “opus number” to a work or set of works when the work or set was published began in the seventeenth century. Opus numbers were not usually used in chronological order and did not necessarily denote when a work was actually composed. Unpublished works often were left without opus numbers.

From the 1800s onwards, Beethoven in particular assigned opus numbers to individual works and sets (including piano pieces, songs and other short works) as they were completed and published: low opus numbers indicate early works, while high opus numbers (for example, the Piano Sonata Opus 110) are works composed and published at the end of Beethoven’s life. Works published posthumously were also assigned high opus numbers, while some works were not given an opus number at all, and were later catalogued in the 1950s as WoO (Werke ohne opus/”works without opus number”). These include the three ‘Electoral’ piano sonatas, written when Beethoven was a very young man, which are not usually included with the main body of the 32 Piano Sonatas (Opus 2 to Opus 111).

Ralph Kirkpatrick

Not all music has an opus number. The music of Bach is given a ‘BWV’ number, which is an abbreviation of “Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis” (literally, “directory of Bach’s works”), and was the cataloguing system for Bach’s music used by Wolfgang Smieder in the 1950s.

Similarly, Mozart’s music is catalogued with “K numbers” from the name of the cataloguer, Köchel. A low K number indicates a piece written when Mozart was very young, while a high number indicates a piece written at the end of his life. Some people know the works by their K numbers alone (a friend of mine has a remarkable knowledge of Mozart’s works by their individual K numbers).

Ralph Kirkpatrick catalogued the numerous works of Domenico Scarlatti in a facsimile edition, and so these pieces are also given a K number, usually written “Kk” to distinguish it from Mozart’s Köchel number. To make matters slightly more confusing, Scarlatti’s works also have a “Longo number” after Alessandro Longo’s edition for the piano. The Kk and Longo numbers do not correspond, which can make identifying a particular work by Scarlatti tricky; fortunately, there are tables of Kk and Longo numbers available online to help clear up such discrepancies.

Confused? Read on…..

Haydn’s works are generally referred to by their Hob or Hoboken numbers, after the cataloguer Anthony von Hoboken’s classification, though some have Opus numbers alone. The works are also grouped into categories, for example, I for symphonies, or XVI for the piano sonatas. The Piano Sonatas have both a work number and a Hob. number, which, like the works of Scarlatti, make identification more confusing.

Schubert’s works have both Opus and “Deutsch” numbers (after Otto Erich Deutsch’s catalogue). The first set of Impromptus for piano, for example, are both Opus 90 and D899. (I tend to refer to Schubert’s piano music by its D number, because that is how I have always known it.)

Music specialists and academics often also refer to the “autographed score” or “autograph version”. These are original scores, written out by the composer, or transcribed by an assistant, and represent the first finished version, and are important historical documents in the scholarship of a particular composer’s works (over the years, music is subjected to editing; in recent years, scholars have gone back to autographed editions to better understand the composer’s original intentions or to clear up questions of attribution or interpretation). Very occasionally, an original autographed score will come to light, which was previously thought to be lost, or non-existent, which can create a lot of excitement amongst music specialists and academics, as well as fetching significant sums at auction. In 2009, researchers unearthed two pieces of music thought to have been written by Mozart when he was still a boy, and in 2012 a ‘new’ piece by Mozart was premiered, after an autographed notebook was found in the attic of a house in Austria.

Piano Music for Springtime

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

Springtime – the turning of the season, the weather growing milder and the days longer, the first fresh buds of blossom appearing – is fertile territory for musical inspiration, as this selection of piano pieces inspired by Spring or emblematic of its reveal:

Christian Sinding: Rustle of Spring

Perhaps the most famous piano piece about Springtime, this late Romantic miniature suggests nature waking up after the long, dark winter and the hope which accompanies the new season in rippling (‘rustling’) semiquavers with a flowing melody beneath. It has a Wagnerian flavour in the way the composer repeats phrases a step higher each time, creating a sense of increased energy and drama.

Tchaikovsky: March (Song of the Lark) and April (Snowdrop)

By contrast to the joyous outpouring of the Rustle of Spring, March, from Tchaikovsky’s suite The Seasons, reminds us that the chill of winter still lingers in the air, with a poignant melody evoking birdsong – the song of the lark – and an introspective mood. April is more cheerful – a whimsical little waltz which suggests the weather is definitely growing warmer as snowdrops and other flowers appear.

Doug Thomas: March from The Seasons

This piece was written for me as part of a project which paid homage to Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons. 12 pieces were composed for 12 pianists who submitted their own recordings which were then mastered into an album. Although in a minor key, the mood of this piece, with its chirruping, pulsing rhythm and cascading arpeggios in the upper register of the piano, suggests nature bursting into life in all its colourful glory after the gloom of winter.  Thomas Official · 03 March (with Frances Wilson)

Pēteris Vasks: Pavasara Muzika (Spring Music)

Another piece from a suite of piano pieces evoking the seasons, Spring Music by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks is a 20-minute reflection on that season rather than a depiction of it, though it contains many evocative motifs which suggest birdsong, spring breezes and a sense of the world growing green again after the stark white scenery (the first piece in Vasks’ cycle) of winter. And while his White Scenery is a minimalist reflection on winter, Spring Music is florid, virtuosic and at times highly dramatic, before subsiding into slower, more meditative passages.

Schubert (arr. Liszt): Die Forelle (The Trout)

Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet is definitely springlike in its carefree melodies and joyful atmosphere, and this transcription for solo piano by Franz Liszt – with its rippling accompaniments and optimistic character – is a virtuosic evocation of the new season. 

Rachel Grimes: Every Morning Birds from The Book of Leaves

Although not specifically about Spring time, this piano miniature by contemporary American composer Rachel Grimes definitely has a flavour of that season with its opening passage of actual birdsong and tracery of treble notes, interspersed with decorative motifs which suggest the chirruping of birds.

Pianists and Their Composers: Chopin

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

The music of Frédéric Chopin is perennially popular – it has never lost its universal appeal and Chopin remains one of the greatest composers for the piano. Virtuosic, imaginative, and emotionally profound, Chopin’s music offers pianists a wealth of expressivity, requiring a combination of superior technique, which always serves the music (rather than as an end in itself), refined touch, a beautiful cantabile (singing) tone, highly nuanced dynamic shading, supple phrasing and rubato, and an appreciation of the interior architecture of this multi-layered music. Chopin is also symbolic of Poland, the country of his birth, whose musical idioms are evident in almost all his music, most obviously, the Mazurkas and Polonaises.

Frédéric Chopin

When asked, the great Chopin player Arthur Rubinstein could not explain why Chopin’s music spoke to him, but like the music of J.S. Bach (which Chopin greatly admired and studied), it expresses universal humanity which, combined with a certain vulnerability, speaks to so many of us, and on many different levels.

Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein

“When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sign of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it. They are moved by it. When I play Chopin I know I speak directly to the hearts of people.”

An unrivalled authority and one of the greatest interpreters of the music of Chopin, Rubinstein brought great dignity and refinement to the music, avoided unnecessary mannerisms and sentimentality, and revealed the structural logic of Chopin’s writing. His playing is memorable for its elegant vocal phrasing, beauty of tone, and natural yet sophisticated shaping.

Arthur Rubinstein Plays Chopin’s Polonaise in A Flat Major, Op.53 

Dinu Lipatti

Dinu Lipatti playing at his last recital © Michel Meusy

“A master of the keyboard” (Harold C Schonberg), Dinu Lipatti was the pupil of an older Chopin master, Alfred Cortot.

Lipatti’s immaculate performances of the waltzes, in particular, are spontaneous, light and nimble, lyrical and suitably dancing, with subtle rubato and great charm.

Maria João Pires

Maria João Pires © classicosdosclassicos.mus.br

“It’s very inner music and very deep,” Maria João Pires has said of Chopin. For her, he is “the deep poet of music”. That depth is really evident in Pires’ playing of the Nocturnes – intimate, refined and passionate, her interpretations eschew drawing room night-time sentimentality and capture all the drama and emotional intensity of these much-loved pieces.

Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini

Described by one critic as “the greatest Chopin player to have emerged from Italy since the Second World War”, Maurizio Pollini’s association with Chopin goes right back to the beginning of his professional career when he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw when he was just 18. His unsentimental, cultivated interpretations are notable for their clarity of expression, perfectly judged poetry, and close attention to the bel canto melodic lines which make Chopin’s music so immediately appealing.

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot © Commentary

Cortot is one of the most celebrated Chopin interpreters, combining flawless technique with a deep appreciation of the structure, voicing, and textures of Chopin’s music. His recordings are acclaimed to this day, and his detailed, annotated editions of Chopin’s music remain highly prized among pianists and teachers.

Janina Fialkowska

Janina Fialkowska

Hailed by her mentor Arthur Rubinstein as “a born Chopin interpreter”, Polish-Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska captures the soul of Chopin, in particular in her performances of the Mazurkas, works which reveal Chopin’s patriotism and innermost sentiments towards his homeland. Fialkowska is sensitive to both the humble, peasant origins of the Mazurka and Chopin’s elevation of the genre into concert pieces. She really captures the poetry, poignancy, and whimsical emotions of these Polish folk dances, and her rubato is perfectly judged, especially important in these pieces where suppleness of pace lends greater emphasis to the emotional depth of the music.

A Love Letter in Music: Schumann’s Fantasie in C, Op. 17

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

Clara Schumann

“perhaps the most impassioned music I have ever written.”
Robert Schumann writing to Clara Wieck, March 1838

Never one for disguising his emotions, Robert Schumann wore his heart on his sleeve and his music reflects his joy at being alive – and of being in love. His Fantasie in C, composed in 1836, is a remarkable display of soul-bearing, a piece imbued with passionate and unresolved longing, and the heart-fluttering panoply of emotions from ecstasy to agony which being in love provokes. It was written during a particularly long separation from his beloved Clara Wieck, at a time when their future together was far from certain.

The Fantasie in C is a love letter in music, a culmination of passion, virtuosity and delicacy. No salon sweetmeat, this is a highly demanding, sweepingly romantic large-scale work which pianists approach with trepidation.

Originally intended as a tribute to Beethoven and eventually dedicated to Franz Liszt, the Fantasie is cast in three movements. It alludes to sonata form but like its dedicatee’s B-minor Sonata, Schumann dissolves the formal structure to create a work of striking improvisatory freedom which heightens its emotional impact and poetic narrative. The ‘Clara theme’ which pervades the work is heard immediately in the descending octaves of the right hand. The music is an intriguing mix of grandeur and intimacy: the opening statement, a rolling dominant 9th chord, expresses the full depth of the composer’s passion and the music moves from a state of yearning to one of subdued tenderness before the restatement of the opening. The Adagio coda begins with a secret love message to Clara: a phrase quoted from the last song in Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte: “Take, then, these songs, beloved, which I have sung for you.”

Robert Schumann

“It makes me hot and cold all over,” Clara wrote of the march-like second movement, which grows more intense (and difficult to play) by its continuous dotted rhythms. It’s a majestic outpouring of joy which reaches its zenith in the exuberant coda, whose celebratory leaps (marked Viel bewegter – “with much movement”) would give even the most practised virtuoso some anxious moments.

Sublimely beautiful, tender and intimate, the third movement is an extended song without words, with ravishing diversions into the remote keys of A-flat and D-flat major which create an extraordinary sense of time suspended. In this movement the passion may be downplayed but it is no less powerfully felt. Falling motifs (drawn from the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto, and melodies of intense poignancy give way to a section of delicate tenderness, a waltz in all but name with 2 voices – treble and bass – singing together. One can almost picture Robert and Clara clasped in a deep embrace. The coda is an ecstatic declaration, gradually increasing in speed, before pulling back to Adagio for the close and three hushed C-major chords which are at once peaceful and yet tinged with sadness.

Moved to Tears

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

Music has the power to tug at the heartstrings, and evoking emotion is the main purpose of music – whether it’s joy or sadness, excitement or meditation. A certain melody or line of a song, a falling phrase, the delayed gratification of a resolved harmony – all these factors make music interesting, exciting, calming, pleasurable and moving.

Tears and chills – or “tingles” – on hearing music are a physiological response which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, as well as the reward-related brain regions of the brain. Studies have shown that around 25% of the population experience this reaction to music. But it’s much more than a pure physiological response. Classical music in particular steers a mysterious path through our senses, triggering unexpected and powerful emotional responses, which sometimes result in tears – and not just tears of sadness.

Tears flow spontaneously in response to a release of tension, perhaps at the end of a particularly engrossing performance. Certain pieces of music can remind us of past events, experiences and people, triggering memories and associated emotions. At other times, we may feel tearfully awestruck in the face of the greatness or sheer beauty of the music.

This last response has a name – Stendhal Syndrome – and while the syndrome is more commonly associated with art, it can be applied equally to the powerful emotional reaction which music provokes.

A psychosomatic disorder, Stendhal Syndrome, or hyperkulturemia, causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, sweating, disorientation, fainting, tears and confusion when someone is looking at artwork (or hearing a piece of music) with which he or she connects emotionally on a profound level. The phenomenon, also called ‘Florence Syndrome’, is named after the French author Marie-Henri Beyle , who wrote under the pen-name of ‘Stendhal’. While visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, he became overcome with emotion and noted his reactions:

“I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations … Everything spoke so vividly to my soul.”

While there is some debate as to whether the syndrome actually exists, there is no doubt that music (and art and literature) can have a very profound effect on our emotional responses.

Certain pieces are well-known tear-jerkers, including:

Mahler: Adagio from Symphony No. 9 in D

Schubert: Winterreise

Personal tragedy portrayed in hauntingly beautiful music.

Elgar: Cello Concerto

Wistful soaring melodies and a sense of hope and anguish, particularly in the final movement, this is Elgar’s tragic masterpiece. 

Allegri: Miserere

Ethereal chords combined with plainchant, the exquisite simplicity and beauty of this music is guaranteed to set the tears flowing. 

Rachmaninoff: Slow movement, Piano Concerto No. 2

Put simply, this is sublimely beautiful music.

Manchester Camerata to Host the UK’s First Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia

by Frances Wilson, Interlude

The therapeutic benefits of music are well-known and widely documented. For people with dementia, music can help reduce anxiety and depression, help maintain speech and language, enhance quality of life, and have a positive impact on families and carers too. Music is also a powerful connector: music provides entertainment and pleasure, especially when shared with others; it lights up the brain and triggers and stimulates memories.

According to the UK’s National Health Service, there are over 940,000 people in the UK with dementia, with 1 in 11 people over the age of 65 being most affected. The care of people living with dementia in the UK costs more than £34bn each year, with the Alzheimer’s Society saying that by 2040, 1.6 million people in the UK will have dementia.

Manchester Camerata’s Music Cafe at the Monastery in Gorton © Duncan Elliott

The Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia is a new collaboration between the Manchester Camerata, a British chamber orchestra renowned for its innovative programming and pioneering outreach work, Alzheimer’s Society, and the University of Manchester. This will continue Manchester Camerata’s existing Music In Mind, a research-based music therapy programme, training a workforce of over 300 volunteer ‘Music Champions’, as well as developing Alzheimer’s Society’s ‘Singing for the Brain’, with the aim to offer musical support to people living with dementia across Greater Manchester. The long-term goal of the Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia is to analyse how incorporating music into dementia care can reduce the need for intervention from healthcare services, reducing pressure on those services and care staff, as well as improving quality of life for patients, their carers, and families.

© Duncan Elliott

The Camerata’s Music Cafes, which have been running for more than a decade now, will provide support to over 1000 people currently living with dementia in the Manchester area. Created in partnership with the University of Manchester, these music champions use the fundamental principles of music therapy, bringing people living with dementia together to sing songs and perform vocal exercises that help improve brain activity and general wellbeing.

Bob Riley (CEO of Manchester Camerata) and Andy Burnham (Mayor of Greater Manchester) © Jay Cipriani

Speaking at the launch, Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, said that Manchester is “a place that has always understood the power of music” and that the project will “unlock that power more fully and ensure that people everywhere, and in all settings, can benefit. For people living with dementia, who love music, the best thing you can do for them…is to reconnect them with that passion, because in that moment when they recognise that music, they are themselves again.” He highlighted the power of music to create connections: for families where a relative has dementia music can “give them glimpses of the person, and that’s why it’s so precious.” (interview with BBC Radio 3).

© Duncan Elliott

The project’s vital funding, totalling over £1million, will support three years of direct musical support activities across all of Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, starting in October 2024.

The project will have major significance in terms of ground-breaking research opportunities, and the intention is that the programme will grow into other areas of the National Health Service and areas of the country, with the hope that other musicians and other orchestras/ensembles may get involved.

“It’s one of the most joyous things any of us have ever experienced. It’s really changed how we view music and what it can do for people.” – Amina Hussain, flautist