György Cziffra: Transcriptions and Paraphrases

by Georg Predota, Interlude

György Cziffra (1921-1994) is universally hailed as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. A musicologist wrote, “In the realm of classical music, his name has been immortalized as synonym of piano playing… He had a remarkable virtuoso technique but also the capacity to leave an intellectual imprint on the music he was playing. Bravura technique is a physical ability one can accomplish and elaborate by hard work yet it is often considered a mere showing off. Some denounce it as sheer acrobatics, a boastful self-display of skill although no pianist can do without technical perfection.” 

Childhood

György Cziffra

Much has been written about his growing up in dire poverty on the outskirts of Budapest and his incredible musical talent on display at an early age. To be sure, the origins of his improvisational art can be traced back to his childhood and his ability to learn music without scores. Essentially, he mimicked the piano playing of his sister and repeated and improvised over tunes sung by his parents. “Thanks to the Strausses, the Offenbachs, and many others,” he later writes, “by the time I was five years old, improvisation at the piano became basically my only daily practice. It was more than mere pleasure; I had the power in my hands, and whenever I liked, I could break away from reality.”

Bar Pianist

Forced to contribute to the meagre household income of his family, Cziffra initially earned money as a child improvising on popular music at a local circus. In the 1930s, and during his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy, however, Cziffra decided to earn money by performing as a bar musician. As he later wrote, “I met some bar musicians, and they gave me some good advice as to how to enter the realm of popular music. Later, they invited me to listen to them play, and slowly, I transformed into a pop musician and, for a while, this was my real profession.” While it was still his ambition to become a concert pianist, Cziffra enjoyed improvising and started to fashion a number of transcriptions of popular American songs and film scores. 

Process of Improvisation

György Cziffra’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ Transcription

He greatly enjoyed working in bars and taverns, and everybody knew him for his marvellous improvisations, which went from jazz, the fandango, and the czardas to the pasodoble. As he wrote, “I ended up dividing the nights between several lucrative places, spending two hours or so at each.” Between 1947 and 1950, Cziffra went on European tours with a jazz band, and in his autobiography, he described the process of improvisation.

“While I give myself over completely to the moment of inspiration, while I give the field of form and theme over completely to my imagination, I always try to maintain a discipline of my thoughts on the following two-three measures so that my hands can follow the path of my vision. The practice of this, at one-time tender and at another time enchanting, made it possible for me to discover the future form of piano performance in the moments of creation.” 

First Performances

He quickly became recognized as a superb jazz pianist and virtuoso, and his performances soon became legendary. And in the footsteps of his hero Franz Liszt, Cziffra improvised dazzling fantasies on opera themes. From his earliest concert appearances, Cziffra wanted to finish a recital with “a short piece, that personally, could stand alone, and which was not prepared for eternity. When I improvise, I feel as if I become one with myself, and my body is freed from all earthly pain. It is truly a process of going beyond my talents, which makes it possible on each occasion to step over the known boundaries of the technical side of the piano performance.”

His career was on the verge of collapsing as Cziffra was imprisoned and subject to hard labour after attempting to flee Hungary in 1950. He was tasked with transporting blocks of stone and needed four months of physiotherapy after leaving prison in order for his fingers, swollen by work of a very different nature, to grow used to the piano again gradually. Cziffra’s first concerts after his release from prison were, to quote the pianist, “so dull as to verge on the incompetent. Fortunately, the transcriptions and improvisations I played as encores at the end of each recital compensated for the rest and shook my audience out of their apathy. These intense moments were like the ecstasy of love. One critic went so far as to say that this was the mastery not of a pianist but of the pianist of one’s dream.”

Success in the West

György Cziffra

When Cziffra made his Paris debut in 1956, he was hailed as “the most extraordinary pianistic phenomenon since Horowitz… Probably the only one of his Generation who can give each note a different colouration without ruining the continuity of the work he is performing.” One performance review even carried the headline, “Franz Liszt has arisen from the dead in a demonic experience, eliciting the landscape and soul of Hungary like a vision in drama and transfiguration.” However, not everybody was enthralled. His recitals featuring his own brilliant paraphrases were considered “brilliantly vulgar confections.” Cziffra himself said about his playing, “I became the profession’s Antichrist due to my improvisations, which multiplied the difficulties ten times over.”

Virtuosity

It was readily assumed that Cziffra’s transcriptions were simply composed for the sake of virtuosity. However, as has been pointed out, the most dazzling passages were born from the composer’s extreme intensity of expression, and the fiery passages were motivated by inner musical force. Cziffra believed that technical mastery should never be displayed for its own sake but rather made subservient to a powerful emotional intellect and a cultured mind. He never accepted praise for his phenomenal technique and sharply reproached admirers, “I don’t care about technique. What you call technique is simply an expression of feeling.”

Franz Liszt

György Cziffra’s ‘Sabre Dance’ Transcription

During a radio interview in 1984, Cziffra spoke about his close spiritual and artistic connection to Franz Liszt. “I started piano similarly to Liszt at a very early age, and I was making people happy with my improvisations, just like him. And, well, I think that I wasn’t too much below his capabilities in this field. This is not the question of immodesty or modesty; this I know because I was able to improvise in such a way those days that I could think four measures ahead. And I realise that very few people are able to do this. This is similar to a chess game, where one player is playing with twelve others simultaneously. By the time my hands arrive somewhere, my brain has already gone further.”

“And this is perhaps the most difficult thing about it. This is why when I make sound recordings improvising on certain melodies, numerous wrong notes happen, and mistakes; my hands cannot follow the outrageous speed that my brain commands. And at the same time, I shape the form of the piece as well. I am not only interpreting, but I am creating the actual piece at the moment. So, I think I am also a creator from another respect, certainly not to such extent as Franz Liszt was, but some congenial trait we do share.”

Notating Improvisations

Improvising is one thing; committing these flights of fancy and inspiration to paper is another. As Cziffra explained, “to put on paper the uniqueness of the improvisational form is extremely difficult… One needs an ear and untiring patience to put these improvisational sessions on paper.” A good many pianists have tried, and even more have failed and left the task unfinished. “But then my son George said that he would like to give it a try. With a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm, he took on the work.”

“Slowing down the tape in both directions, George wrote down the place of each sound, and slowly, after a point, he was able to give form to a certain amount of my musical creations. Finally, I too became involved in writing down the musical notes, which now turned into true compositions, which mirrored my thoughts and emotions.” Cziffra was certainly hoping that the pages of his published transcriptions would open the door to new possibilities and encourage a less stereotypical and more personal approach to performances of classical piano music. 

Historical Legacy

Monument of György Cziffra in Budapest

Cziffra’s transcriptions and paraphrases left a dazzling record of his seemingly superhuman power. However, at the height of his popularity in the 50s and 60s, he seemingly vanished due to personal tragedy and changing tastes and fashion. He was frequently accused of using composers as a springboard for personal excess and idiosyncrasy, and audiences became weary of Romantic exaggeration and “turned elsewhere in search of greater depth and spiritual refreshment.”

His public image has always been highlighted by the recognition of his prodigious pianistic abilities and achievements. Yet, his critics always saw him as little more than a technician or notable interpreter of Liszt. Indifference to his unique powers has become almost commonplace, and in some quarters, he was even vilified. A French reviewer wrote, “when one plays like this, the best thing to do is to commit suicide.”

Critical Assessment

To be sure, Cziffra could play with pure elegance and simple, direct expression, but he inevitably polarised critical opinion and aroused stormy controversy. A critic wrote, “Cziffra could never play louder without getting faster,” and this particular shortcoming was attributed to haphazard and ill-disciplined technique. As you might well imagine, Cziffra wasn’t particularly enamoured with critics either, calling them “carrion beetles of the mind… easily recognized by their boundless pride and pathetic intellect.” To be sure, Cziffra’s ample use of rubato and variable tempi did not agree with current concert practice “but were the mark of artistic freedom and individuality of earlier times.”

The French-Cypriot pianist Cyprien Katsaris explained in a 2012 interview, “Cziffra had that terrible label as a circus-virtuoso pianist and very few people were willing to speak openly about all the good things about him. I think this is absolutely insane… He used his incredible virtuosity in an expressive way – whether it was revolt, whether it was anger, tenderness, or serenity. He was able to do so much with the wide range of whatever he played.” Cziffra was much more than a mere virtuoso, and his lyricism was sublime and his “personal commitment and distinctive musicianship reveal themselves in a number of fine recordings of keyboard music by C.P.E. Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, François Couperin, Johann Tobias Krebs, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Mozart, and Clementi.”

His performances were always characterised by an unconditional spontaneity and the impulsiveness of the moment, and many critics denied him the ability “to interpret works that are less virtuosic in a coherent and true-to-the-text manner.” For Cziffra, “the interpreter’s role in society is like a keepers’ watching over people’s emotions to prevent them from being worn away by a soul-destroying everyday existence…Finally, my virtuosity no longer prevented people from seeing the wood for the trees.”

15 Pieces of Classical Music About Trees

by Emily E. Hogstad, Interlude

No matter how many of us end up moving into towns and cities, human beings are still irresistibly drawn to forests, woodlands, and trees.

Classical composers are no exception. In fact, a huge percentage of them were great nature lovers (Beethoven, for one, often composed in his head during his walks), and many of them went so far as to write music inspired by forests.

Forest under bright sunlight © Flux AI Image Generator

Today, we’re looking at fifteen pieces of classical music about trees. Put on your hiking boots and join us!

Francesco Geminiani: La foresta incantata (1754)  

Italian composer Francesco Geminiani lived from 1687 to 1762. He helped to popularise the Italian style of violin playing abroad, most famously in London.

He was widely admired during his lifetime, being considered the equal of composers like Handel and Corelli, but for whatever reason, he has fallen out of favour today.

In 1754, he wrote a pantomime ballet called La foresta incantata (“The Enchanted Forest”).

Franz Schubert: Der Lindenbaum from Winterreise (1827)

Winterreise (“Winter Journey”) is a series of twenty-four songs for voice and piano.

These two dozen songs are narrated by a man who, when he hears of his beloved’s betrothal to another, goes on a wintertime journey to escape the memory of her.

Der Lindenbaum (“The Linden Tree”) is the fifth song of the cycle. In it, the narrator notices a linden tree as he travels. It serves as a reminder of happier days, during which he used to sit under one and enjoy his day.

As he passes, the linden tree seems to call out to him. However, he doesn’t turn back. Instead, he leaves the tree and all the memories it represents and keeps travelling forward into an uncertain, unsettled future.

Vincent d’Indy: La Forêt Enchantée (1878) 

French composer Vincent d’Indy wrote La Forêt Enchantée in 1878 when he was just twenty-seven years old.

At the time, Wagner was a major influence on the young composer (as he was to many young composers), and you can really hear that influence here.

In this piece, d’Indy follows the story of a knight named Harald, who visits an enchanted forest and meets seductive elves. In the finale, he drinks from an enchanted forest lake and falls into a deep sleep.

Franz Liszt: Waldesrauschen (1862-63) 

In the early 1860s, pianist and composer Franz Liszt wrote two concert etudes. The first is called Waldesrauschen, or “Forest Murmurs.”

This piece uses the piano to imitate the sound of breezes blowing through trees. Those breezes begin very quietly with a marking of vivace, or “in a lively manner.” Eventually, the work and the wind become loud and passionate. 

Johann Strauss II: Tales from the Vienna Woods (1868)

One of the most famous parts of Vienna is its woods, found just outside the city. It’s a sizable woods: almost thirty miles long and between twelve to eighteen miles wide.

Julius Schmid: Beethoven’s Walk in Nature

Schubert and Beethoven often found creative inspiration in those woods, and so did Johann Strauss II.

In 1868, he wrote one of his famous waltzes (which is actually an arrangement of multiple waltzes) and called it Tales from the Vienna Woods.

It was inspired by the dances of the rural citizens. To imitate folk instruments, Strauss employed a zither.

Alexander Glazunov: The Forest (1887)

Russian composer Alexander Glazunov wrote an orchestral fantasy called The Forest at the age of twenty-two.

He wrote an entire program for it, describing in exacting detail what he’d seen in his mind’s eye: daybreak, birds chirping, the appearance of nymphs, a hunting party, and finally, more bird calls.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Forest of Fir Trees in Winter from The Nutcracker (1892) 

Every ballet lover knows the story of The Nutcracker. A little girl named Clara receives an enchanted nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. In the middle of the night, Clara visits the doll while the rest of the household is asleep – and magical events transpire.

After witnessing a battle between gingerbread soldiers and mice, Clara is astonished to see the nutcracker turn into a handsome prince.

The ballet’s first act ends when the prince leads her into a forest as snow falls. This stunning music by Tchaikovsky accompanies their journey.

Edward MacDowell: To an Old White Pine from New England Idyls (1896) 

In 1896, American composer Edward MacDowell and his wife moved into a farmhouse in the New Hampshire countryside.

MacDowell was deeply inspired by his New England surroundings. In 1902, he wrote a series of ten piano miniatures depicting various natural phenomena and history, including “An Old Garden” and “From Puritan Days.”

The seventh in the set of ten is called “To an Old White Pine.” There is a brief poem at the top of the score:

A giant of an ancient race
He stands, a stubborn sentinel
O’er swaying, gentle forest trees
That whisper at his feet.

John Ireland: The Almond Trees (1913)

John Ireland was an English composer born in 1879. He began his musical studies with piano and organ, then became interested in composition in the late 1890s.

The Almond Trees is a slender, evocative, meandering work with a real Impressionist tinge.

Jean Sibelius: The Trees (1914)

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius may be best-known for his symphonies, but his piano music is worth checking out, too.

One of the loveliest examples is The Trees, a collection of five sensitive pieces for solo piano.

Each movement is named after a particular species of tree: When the Rowan Blossoms, The Solitary Pine, The Aspen, The Birch and The Spruce.

Ottorino Respighi: The Pines of Rome (1924) 

The Pines of Rome is an orchestral tone poem in four movements, and possibly the most famous example of tree-inspired classical music.

The pines at the Villa Borghese

Each of the four movements portrays pines in a particular location in Rome: The Pines of the Villa Borghese, Pines Near a Catacomb, The Pines of the Janiculum, and The Pines of the Appian Way.

The piece moves backwards in time in a striking way. The first movement portrays children playing in twentieth-century Rome, but with each movement, Respighi goes further back in time, and by the end, he’s depicting a legion of Roman soldiers marching down the tree-lined Appian Way.

Arnold Bax: The Tale the Pine Trees Knew (1931) 

While listening to the ominous opening measures to Arnold Bax’s tone poem The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, one wonders what dark events these trees have witnessed.

We’re left to speculate since Bax didn’t leave a concrete program.

However, he did at least mention that the work was inspired by visits to Norway and Scotland. He wrote:

This work is concerned solely with the abstract mood of these places, and the pine trees’ tale must be taken purely as a generic one. Certainly, I had no specific coniferous story to relate.

Igor Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks (1937-38) 

In the late 1930s, American diplomat and philanthropist Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss gave themselves quite the anniversary gift: they commissioned a work by Igor Stravinsky!

Stravinsky answered the call by writing this attractive neoclassical concerto for chamber orchestra.

It was named after Dumbarton Oaks, the Bliss’s massive estate in Georgetown, Washington, DC.

If the name sounds familiar to you, it might be because a few years later, in 1944, the Dumbarton Oaks Conference was held at the estate. Participants came out of the conference with proposals for the establishment of what ultimately became the United Nations.

L’arbre des songes by Henri Dutilleux (1983-85) 

French composer Henri Dutilleux wrote L’arbre des songes (or “The Tree of Dreams”) in the mid-1980s. It’s a four-movement violin concerto that was dedicated to violinist Isaac Stern.

Dutilleux described it like this:

All in all the piece grows somewhat like a tree, for the constant multiplication and renewal of its branches is the lyrical essence of the tree. This symbolic image, as well as the notion of a seasonal cycle, inspired my choice of ‘L’arbre des songes’ as the title of the piece.

Treesong by John Williams (2001) 

American composer John Williams also took inspiration from trees when writing this violin concerto.

He found himself drawn to a particular tree at the Boston Public Garden: in his words, “a beautiful specimen of the Chinese dawn redwood, or metasequoia.”

This species of tree was once thought to have gone extinct. Fortunately, however, some modern-day examples were discovered, thereby saving the species and enabling modern humans to enjoy them.

Later, Williams met Dr. Shiu-Ying Hu, a botanist from Harvard. While they were walking in the Arnold Arboretum, she pointed out the oldest metasequoia and told the story of how she planted it in the 1940s.

“I was thunderstruck by this coincidence, and when I told her of ‘my’ metasequoia in the Public Garden, she informed me that the younger tree I loved so much was also one of her children,” Williams wrote.

The awe and human warmth of this realisation, along with Williams’s love for these trees, colours TreeSong.

Conclusion

From John Williams’s portrait of redwoods to Geminiani’s portrait of an enchanted forest, it’s clear that composers from every generation have enjoyed branching out by writing tree-inspired music, and there will surely be more tree-inspired music to come!

Which of these works best evokes the magic of trees? Have we missed any of your favourites? Let us know!

Franz Liszt, Born 22 October 1811: The “Other” Works for Piano and Orchestra

by Georg Predota, Interlude 

The two concertos for piano and orchestra by Franz Liszt belong to the standard concerto repertoire. A serious challenge for every pianist, they have been audience favourites for well over one hundred years. As a critic wrote, “these concertos are written in the best idiomatic keyboard style, a style that came naturally to a man who intoxicated his audiences with his triumphant conquest of the piano.”

Apparently, Liszt also composed a 3rd Piano Concerto, possibly before the first two. This concerto was basically unknown until 1989, but it was identified and assembled from multiple sources by Jay Rosenblatt. It had long been assumed that they were early drafts of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, but since Liszt never mentioned a third concerto in his writing, the existence was unknown. That work premiered in 1990, but it remains little known and little played.

Franz Liszt

Concertos aside, Liszt wrote a number of works for solo piano and orchestra, mostly during his teenage years. In fact, these pieces are probably his first attempts at orchestral writing, combining the forces of the piano and the orchestra. As we celebrate Liszt’s birthday on 22 October, we thought it might be fun to listen to these pieces rarely featured on concert programs today.

Malédiction, S121/R452 

Liszt wrote at least two concerti for piano and orchestra in his teens. However, they were never published, and the manuscripts were presumed lost or ignored. Such is the case with the single-movement concerto for piano and strings known as Malédiction. It was started in 1833, revised in 1840, then forgotten and published only in 1915. Actually, the origins of the work might be traced back to 1827, when sixteen-year-old Liszt played a concerto in London. The great pianist Ignaz Moscheles described it as having “chaotic beauties,” but all traces seem to have been lost.

Liszt did not provide a title for the work, but when the composer received the manuscript from the copyist, he inserted certain descriptive romantic phrases over different sections of the music. The opening theme, which was later taken over in the Années de pèlerinage, is labelled “Malédiction” (Curse), while the second theme area is marked “Orgueil” (Pride).

Liszt would later reuse this theme in his Faust Symphony. A calmer section carries the direction “Pleurs, angoisse” (Tears, anguish), and he identifies the codetta as “Raillerie.” The work is unusual as it features only strings in the orchestra, but as John Lade writes, it is “a remarkable succession mood sketches showing a striking, even unexpected unity in performance.”

Grande Fantaisie Symphonique (on themes from Berlioz Lélio)

The young Liszt

Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz first met a few months after the July Revolution, when Liszt attended the first performance of the Symphonie fantastique in the company of the composer on December 5 1830. Berlioz and Liszt developed a warm friendship that lasted the better part of 20 years. Berlioz does speak of Liszt with a good deal of affection in his Mémoires, and he clearly regarded him unrivalled as a pianist. However, he was much more guarded about Liszt’s orchestral compositions.

Liszt did fashion a piano transcription of the Symphonie fantastique, and when Berlioz produced the sequel Lélio, for reciting actors, choruses with orchestra, and voices featuring dramatic monologues, Liszt decided to use two themes to construct a large-scale work in two parts. He titled it “Grande Fantaisie Symphonique,” featuring a full orchestra and a piano part fully integrated into the orchestral texture.

For his fantasy, Liszt uses the ballad for tenor and piano Le pêcheur, and the song for baritone, men’s chorus and orchestra called Chanson de brigands. Liszt writes an imaginative introduction before the first expansive melody finally appears as a piano solo. This theme is developed at length in dramatic fashion and into far-reaching tonalities, and a pianistic explosion leads to the “Brigands’ Song.” Here, Liszt preserves the Berlioz orchestration for a couple of measures before the piano takes over. The theme is developed, and new themes, not from Lélio, appear before a reworked reprise concludes a very confident work by the 23-year-old Liszt.

Fantasy on Themes from Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens” 

Franz Liszt met Beethoven at the age of 11 when he was introduced by his teacher Carl Czerny. The young Liszt played a piece of Ries and a fugue by Bach, which Beethoven told him to transpose. Beethoven apparently told him, “You are one of the lucky ones, as it is your destiny to bring joy and delight to many people.” For Liszt, “it was the proudest moment in my life.” It is hardly surprising that Liszt was to become a tireless champion of Beethoven and his music.

Franz Liszt: Fantasy on Themes from Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens” music score

Once Liszt had completed the final revisions for his E-flat Major Concerto, he issued his Fantasy on Beethoven’s the “Ruins of Athens” in three different versions: one for solo piano, one for two pianos, and one for piano and orchestra. All three versions are dedicated to Nikolay Rubinstein, and Liszt extracts three Beethoven themes to fashion his Fantasy.

The introduction, exclusively sounded by the orchestra, uses material from the “March and Chorus” section of the original music blended with Liszt’s own “Capriccio alla turca.” The piano takes the lead in the “Chorus of the Dervishes,” while the final section is based on the famous “Turkish March.” Introduced in a very gentle way, with the orchestration, volume and tempo gradually increasing, the coda resounds the other themes. An annotator writes, “For some inscrutable reason, this excellent work is almost never encountered in concert, a fate which seems to have befallen Beethoven’s original, too.”

Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies

Franz Liszt at around 14-15 years old

During Liszt’s lifetime, his Hungarian Rhapsodies were among his most popular works. Liszt writes, “by using the word Rhapsody, I wanted to describe the fantastical-epical nature I believed I had found therein. Each of these works seems to me to form part of a series of poems in which the unity of national enthusiasm is most striking; it is a kind of enthusiasm which can only belong to a single people, whose soul and innermost feelings it represents.”

Originally written for solo piano, Liszt decided to produce a version for piano and orchestra of his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14. The structure is based on contrasting Hungarian folk tunes, a slow “lassan,” followed by a rapid “czifra” and a whirling “friska.” These individual sections are not strictly delineated but are subjected to constant permutations and the introduction of elements taken from improvisation.

The primary theme is based on a Hungarian folk song entitled “The battle of Mohács,” a melody that Liszt knew rather well. Interestingly, as in the piano concertos, Liszt returns to the opening theme to conclude the work. As he reported with a good deal of pride, “this way of summarising and rounding off an entire piece at its conclusion is really quite characteristic of me.”

De Profundis 

Liszt never completed his 3rd Piano Concerto, and his De profundis “Psaume instrumental” belongs in that unfinished category as well. Composed in 1834/35, this elaborated piano concerto was inspired by Liszt’s friendship with the Abbe Felicite de Lamennais, and his rejection of the right-wing aspects of Roman Catholicism. The text clearly references Psalm 130, but the chant itself was composed by Liszt.

Franz Liszt: De Profundis music score

Out of the depths I have cried unto thee:
O Lord, hear my voice:
Let thine ears be attentive,
to the voice of my supplications.

This early concerto already outlines the way Liszt would subsequently formulate his structural ideas. All sections are presented in a single movement, containing a slow passage, a scherzo and a finale based on the transformation of the material used in previous sections. Liszt treated the orchestra with subtlety and sensitivity, and scholars have found “music of stunning originality and a striking instance of Liszt’s early genius.” Liszt had always wanted to complete the work, but life got in the way. It has since been completed by a number of scholars and performers.

Totentanz

Although Liszt never completed his “Psaume instrumental,” he did recycle the chant melody in his first version of the Totentanz. However, the inspiration for Totentanz (Dance of Death) was probably pictorial rather than literary or musical. In 1839, Liszt and Marie d’Agoult visited Pisa and admired the fresco of the Last Judgement. Liszt might have found additional inspiration in a series of wood engravings by Hans Holbein, which Liszt references in a letter to his son-in-law Hans von Bülow, to whom the work is dedicated.

The work is a series of variations on the “Dies irae” theme which Berlioz had famously used in his Symphonie fantastique to portray the sabbath of the witches. A contemporary critic writes, “Its shuddering, clanking rhythms, its sounds as of dancing bones, are of the weirdest achievement possible.” Liszt achieves astonishing dramatic power interspersed by moments of unexpected peace.” And Béla Bartók wrote, “…the work has such a phantasmagorical, dream-like quality that one feels one is in a world in which the strangest things could happen, and no juxtaposition is too bizarre.”

Totentanz​ was to be Liszt’s final work for piano and orchestra. Shortly after the premiere, Liszt was ready to join a clerical order, and he was thus known as Abbé Liszt for the remainder of his life. I trust you enjoyed this little excursion into the repertoire for solo piano and orchestra by Franz Liszt, a repertoire that combines the extraordinary accomplishments of his pianism with his visionary imagination as an orchestral composer. Happy Birthday!

30 Best Classical Music Movies As Rated by Rotten Tomatoes

by Emily E. Hogstad, Interlude

Looking for a movie about classical music to watch? You’re in luck! Today we’ve not only assembled a list of thirty movies about classical music, but we’ve also checked in with movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes to see which ones have gotten the best scores.

We’re sharing them in reverse countdown style order, starting with the worst-reviewed and working our way up to the best.

So, pop some popcorn and enjoy these thirty movies about classical music.

Paganini: The Devil’s Violinist (2013) – 13 reviews, 31% positive 

Have you ever been frustrated by actors in movies faking playing their musical instruments? Have you ever fantasized about how cool it would be if actual musicians could play musician characters?

Then this movie might be for you. In 2013, violinist David Garrett starred as nineteenth-century superstar Niccolò Paganini. The film traces his shocking gambling losses and his scandalous love life. Pro violinist David Garrett plays violin onscreen, but according to most critics, that wasn’t enough to save the film.

Rhapsody in Blue (1945) – 6 reviews, 33% positive

In 1937, composer George Gershwin died at the age of 38 from a brain tumor. A few years later Hollywood came calling, seeking to immortalize his life in film.

The first big tribute to him came in the form of the movie Rhapsody in Blue, which starred actor Robert Alda as George Gershwin.

The movie was a bizarre mishmash of real life and fiction. Weirdly, George’s sister was completely written out of the story of his life, and his love interests in the movie were not based on real women. Meanwhile, other friends like Al Jolson and Oscar Levant made cameos as themselves.

Critics complained that the film has too many musical performances in it. (But maybe that intrigues you!)

Unfaithfully Yours (1984) – 18 reviews, 33% positive 

Claude Eastman (played by Dudley Moore) is both a conductor and a composer. He has just married a much younger woman, and he harbors paranoia that she is going to cheat on him, so he hires a private detective to follow her.

The detective comes back with footage of Eastman’s wife with one of his orchestra’s playboy violinists. But is his wife really cheating, or is it all just some comic misunderstanding?

August Rush (2007) – 123 reviews, 37% positive

In this movie, a cellist studying at Juilliard gets pregnant after a one-night stand with a rock singer. She gets hit by a car, goes into a coma, and gives birth while unconscious. Her father has the boy put up for adoption but tells his daughter that he died.

As you can imagine, the boy turns into a musical savant. He and his mother embark on twin journeys to find each other. Will they finally reunite in dramatic fashion at a New York Philharmonic concert in Central Park? You’ll have to watch to find out!

Although critics were not fond of this movie, audiences loved it. There’s a huge discrepancy between the critics’ scores and the audiences’: 37% to 82%. So maybe it’s worth checking out after all!

Lisztomania (1975) – 11 reviews, 45% positive 

This is definitely the weirdest movie on this list. It’s very (very, very) loosely based on the life of composer and pianist Franz Liszt. It starts when Liszt and his mistress Marie d’Agoult are caught in flagrante by her husband. The two are punished by being nailed inside a piano that is then placed in the path of a speeding train. And that’s only the beginning.

All kinds of madness proceed to ensue. (The film ends with Liszt using a spaceship to destroy a Wagner-Hitler hybrid, just in case you were wondering.)

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) – 94 reviews, 52% positive 

This movie is based on the 2002 novel Coco and Igor by Chris Greenhalgh, which is an imagination of the potential affair between the two creative giants.

So, did Chanel and Stravinsky actually indulge in a dalliance? Some people think so; others don’t; there is apparently no concrete proof. But if it did happen, it probably looked something like this stylish evocation of 1920s Paris.

The Soloist (2009) – 207 reviews, 56% positive 

In 2005, real-life Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez met a bass player with schizophrenia named Nathaniel Ayers, who was living on the streets of Los Angeles. Ayers attended Juilliard for two years but had to drop out due to his deteriorating mental health.

The movie explores what happened next: how a reader procures Ayers a cello, Ayers’ struggle to get into housing, and how the friendship impacts Lopez.

The two main characters are played by Robert Downey, Jr., and Jamie Foxx.

Humoresque (1946) – 8 reviews, 57% positive 

Humoresque is a delicious black and white melodrama. It charts the career of violinist Paul Boray (played by John Garfield), his love affair with his unhappily married patroness Helen Wright (played by Joan Crawford), and Boray’s erotically charged partnership with pianist Sid Jeffers (played by the ever-quippy Oscar Levant).

The film features some of the more convincing violin faking in cinema history, since violinist Isaac Stern’s hands were filmed in such a way to make it appear that John Garfield was actually playing.

One more fun fact: Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy for violin and orchestra was written for this movie!

Immortal Beloved (1994) – 56 reviews, 57% positive Play

After discovering some sensitive papers after Beethoven’s death, his secretary Anton Schindler attempts to ascertain the identity of a woman Beethoven labeled his “immortal beloved.”

He speaks to Beethoven’s piano student, Giulietta Giucciardi – then Anna-Marie Erdödy, a woman who Beethoven befriends after his deafness causes a concert he’s conducting to go disastrously – and, finally, Johanna Reiss, his brother’s wife, a woman who he claims to loathe, and who harbors a truly shocking secret.

Farinelli (1994) – 25 reviews, 60% positive

Farinelli is a biopic devoted to castrato singer Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, better known by his stage name, Farinelli.

An important part of the movie is the relationship between Farinelli and his brother Riccardo. The two are involved together in various romantic escapades with various women.

The film also features cameos by real-life figures like Nicola Porpora and George Frederick Handel.

Music of the Heart (1999) – 91 reviews, 64% positive 

In Music of the Heart, Meryl Streep plays real-life school music teacher Roberta Guaspari, who starts teaching at a public school in Harlem. After ten years of building up the music program across multiple schools, funding is cut and Guaspari loses her job.

To save the program, Guaspari and the students decide to mount a benefit concert. However, shortly before the show, they lose their venue. Can classical music superstars like Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell save the day?

Mozart’s Sister (2010) – 63 reviews, 73% positive 

This movie is a fictionalized take on the life of Nannerl Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus’s older and musically talented sister.

While on tour, the Mozarts’ carriage breaks down and they are forced to stay at the abbey where the teenage Princess Louise of France lives.

With Louise’s introduction in-hand, the Mozarts go to Versailles. Nannerl tiptoes around a romance with a member of the French royal family. At the same time, she pushes back against her father, who doesn’t believe it is proper for her to compose or play the violin.

The Piano Teacher (2001) – 89 reviews, 73% positive

The Piano Teacher is a spicy – and violent – French movie.

The main character, Erika, is a fifty-something piano professor in Vienna who lives with her controlling elderly mother. She enters into a romantic relationship with a young engineer who is also studying music. He ultimately becomes her student.

A lot proceeds to happen in that relationship that is not particularly family friendly, so we won’t get into it here. But if you want to watch it, we’re certainly not going to stop you.

Impromptu (1991) – 19 reviews, 74% positive

If you’ve ever wondered what Chopin would be like if he was a Hugh Grant character, have we got the movie for you!

Impromptu is a sweet, charming, semi-historically accurate comedy recounting the story of the start of the romance between authoress George Sand (played by Judy Davis) and Frederic Chopin (played by Grant).

Opera-like misunderstandings develop when Franz Liszt (played by Julian Sands) and Countess Marie d’Agoult (played by Bernadette Peters) join the story.

The Red Violin (1998) – 42 reviews, 74% positive 

The Red Violin is more like a series of short films than one cohesive whole. It traces the history of a fictional violin made by a fictional luthier whose wife dies in childbirth.

Over the course of its life, the mysteriously red violin finds its way into the hands of a sickly child prodigy, a sexually voracious Paganini-like figure, and a music teacher caught up in the Cultural Revolution in China.

The framing device linking these stories together is the story of the violin being auctioned in the present day and investigated by an appraiser played by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) – 28 reviews, 75% positive 

In Mr. Holland’s Opus, Richard Dreyfuss plays Glenn Holland, a music teacher who longs to write a symphony.

However, he’s distracted from composing by the demands of teaching high school students. He also becomes disconnected from his home life: when his son Cole is found to be deaf, he doesn’t put in the work to learn sign language, resulting in his wife becoming more-or-less a single parent.

What will happen when budget cuts threaten his job thirty years after Mr. Holland takes it? You’ll have to watch to find out.

A Late Quartet (2012) – 113 reviews, 77% positive 

A Late Quartet follows the members of the fictional Fugue String Quartet, which is reeling after their cellist Peter (played by Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

The second violinist Robert and violist Juliette (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener) are a married couple, and tensions about their respective roles in the ensemble lead Robert to cheat on his wife.

Oh, and first violinist Daniel (played by Mark Ivanir) is in a relationship with Robert and Juliette’s daughter.

This movie charts all the messiness that follows. Roger Ebert observed, “It does one of the most interesting things any film can do. It shows how skilled professionals work.”

Chevalier (2023) – 162 reviews, 77% positive 

Chevalier is inspired by the real-life story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a violinist, conductor, composer, swordsman, and ladies’ man who was a prominent figure in eighteenth-century Paris.

The movie follows the difficulties that Bologne faced due to his race (his mother had been an enslaved teenager). Several real-life storylines become brutally shocking.

The film also chronicles Bologne’s rebellious fighting spirit and his ability to adapt to new political circumstances at the dawn of the French Revolution. 

Grand Piano (2013) – 73 reviews, 79% positive 

The premise of this film is absolutely ludicrous, so make sure to suspend your disbelief. Once you do that, it’s a fun ride.

Elijah Wood plays a nervous pianist who is returning to the stage after a break due to debilitating stage fright. When the concert starts, he sees a note in his sheet music that reads “Play one wrong note and you DIE.” A red laser appears on him. (Behold the dangers of not memorizing the solo part!)

Increasingly unhinged hijinks ensue, including chases on catwalks over the stage and even the death of an usher.

Autumn Sonata (1978) – 32 reviews, 88% positive

In Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman directs screen legend Ingrid Bergman in her final performance.

Ingrid Bergman plays a renowned aging pianist named Charlotte. Charlotte visits her daughters Eva and Helena. Eva has married a pastor and takes care of Helena, who has several debilitating disabilities. The film follows the three women as they reconnect and try to come to terms with their difficult past.

(By the way, keep Ingrid Bergman’s name in mind, because she appears in another film on this list…)

Hilary and Jackie (1998) – 58 reviews, 88% positive  

Hilary and Jackie tells the story of the real-life relationship (somewhat fictionalized for the sake of the movie) between Hilary du Pré and her cellist sister Jacqueline du Pré.

Jacqueline is fated to become one of the greatest musicians of the century, while Hilary is merely extremely accomplished.

The film examines the toll that great talent can take on a family, as well as the emotionally shattering aftermath of Jacqueline’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in her late twenties, which caused her astonishing career to be cut short just as it was getting started.

Note that the film included controversial details about Jacqueline’s relationship with Hilary’s husband and was criticized by some of her friends.

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) – 237 reviews, 88% positive 

Meryl Streep plays the real-life socialite and singer Florence Foster Jenkins, who became a sensation in early twentieth-century New York for her terrible singing and her often-mystifying confidence in her abilities.

Hugh Grant stars as her manager and companion, who has been known to bribe reviewers into giving her positive press, while Cosmé McMoon (played by Simon Helberg, best known for his role as Howard from The Big Bang Theory) reluctantly signs on to be her accompanist.

Eventually a deluded Jenkins books Carnegie Hall and sells out the whole place. The movie explains how she became such a camp favorite and a strangely inspirational figure.

Amadeus (1984) – 154 reviews, 89% positive 

This might just be the most renowned movie about classical music ever made.

In the film’s opening, composer Antonio Salieri is committed to a mental institution after attempting suicide. He recalls to a priest how he once pledged faithfulness to God in exchange for musical talent. However, when Salieri meets the effortlessly talented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and witnesses his obscene sense of humor in action, Salieri comes to believe that God has chosen to mock him by placing the talent that should rightfully be his in Mozart’s hands instead. He vows to destroy Mozart in whatever way he can.

It’s not historically accurate, but it’s inspired storytelling.

The Piano (1993) – 71 reviews, 90% positive 

In The Piano, a nineteenth-century Scotswoman named Ada McGrath (played by Holly Hunter) arrives in New Zealand to marry a frontiersman named Alisdair Stewart (played by Sam Neill). Ada brings along her precocious six-year-old daughter and a piano.

Ada is a mysterious woman. She has not spoken since childhood, preferring instead to communicate by playing piano. She also refuses intimacy with Stewart, who refuses to retrieve Ada’s heavy piano from the beach or to make any effort at all to understand his new wife’s desires.

Stewart’s neighbor, George Baines, eventually transports the piano from the beach, using Ada’s passion for the instrument as a tool to seduce her. Eventually Ada develops feelings for him. The film deals with the messy fallout from their relationship and her overwhelming love for her piano and music.

Shine (1996) – 44 reviews, 91% positive 

In Shine, a musical Australian boy named David Helfgott struggles under the pressures of his abusive teacher father Peter. Peter forbids his son from studying in America.

David gets a little older and befriends a novelist named Katharine. He’s offered another opportunity to study out of the country, this time in London. With the encouragement of Katharine, he finds the strength to leave, but Peter makes it clear to his son that if he goes, he will not be welcome at home again.

After leaving home, David’s mental health deteriorates dramatically, and he will have to endure intense struggles to stay in music.

Shine is based on a real-life story.

Tár (2022) – 348 reviews, 91% 

In Tár, Cate Blanchett doesn’t just play the eponymous title character, conductor Lydia Tár; she embodies her.

Lydia Tár is the first woman conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and preparing to make a landmark live recording of Mahler’s fifth symphony.

However, her relentless march into the pantheon of great conductors is interrupted when an estranged former protege dies by suicide, opening the door to an investigation of Tár’s abuses of power and privilege.

Will she be able to escape accountability? And what exactly does accountability even mean in an art form that has historically harbored and celebrated manipulators and abusers of all kinds?

Fantasia (1940) – 58 reviews – 95% positive 

Fantasia is a “musical anthology” film, featuring eight segments of classic Disney animation set to classical music performed by conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The film includes such legendary animations as the seasons changing to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker; a comic ballet danced by cartoon ostriches; and Mickey Mouse attending to his duties as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to the work by Paul Dukas of the same name.

Fantasia’s soundtrack was recorded with innovative new recording methods that necessitated 33 microphones. Over 42 days of recording, 483,000 feet of film were used!

The Pianist (2002) – 189 reviews, 95% positive Play

The Pianist tells the story of Jewish Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman. As the title suggests, Szpilman is a young and very promising pianist. He is playing a recital on the radio when war breaks out.

In 1940, after the Nazi invasion of Warsaw, he and his family are sent to the Warsaw Ghetto, where many people die of illness, starvation, and violence in horrific conditions.

Szpilman is forced to embark on a harrowing journey to do whatever he can to resist and survive.

An American in Paris (1951) – 101 reviews, 95% positive 

An American In Paris is one of the great classic Hollywood musicals.

Dancer Gene Kelly stars as an artist named Jerry trying to make it in postwar Paris.

His best friend is Adam, a sardonic pianist played by Oscar Levant.

Adam has a singer colleague named Henri (played by Georges Guétary), who is engaged to Lise (played by Leslie Caron).

To top it all off, the elegant Nina Foch plays an heiress who is taken by Jerry’s art…or maybe just Jerry himself!

The plot, however, is secondary to the soundtrack, which consists of the greatest hits by George Gershwin. Its centerpiece is a dazzling seventeen-minute fantasy ballet set to – you guessed it – An American In Paris. It’s unforgettable.

Intermezzo (1939) – 11 reviews – 100% positive 

Remember that we mentioned to keep Ingrid Bergman’s name in mind? That’s because she’s the star of the number-one-rated classical music movie, Intermezzo, which also happens to be the first film that Ingrid Bergman shot in America.

Leslie Howard stars as a famous violin soloist named Holger Brandt who invites his daughter’s piano teacher (played by Bergman) to accompany him on his next tour. During the tour, the two fall madly in love. Will their love last, or will Brandt return to his family?

Conclusion

We’re coming up on a hundred years of films about classical music and classical musicians, and as Chevalier and Tár demonstrate, it seems likely that directors, screenwriters, and actors will continue to be inspired by the world of classical music in the years to come!