By |

by Dr Michael Low

A second article on this giant of piano music 

According to all reliable accounts, Liszt was the first true celebrity pianist in the history of Western art music. He was the embodiment of the Romantic Era: the sublime and the ridiculous, the diabolical and the virtuous, the transcendental and the mediocre, and no other composer in the 19th century had as diverse a compositional output. Liszt’s physical beauty, musical gift and striking stage persona combined for an intoxicating cocktail of the visionary, genius, sex, lust, snobbery, vanity, religion and literature. In short, he was Faust, Mephisto, Casanova, Byron, Mazeppa and St Francis all in one. Had cyberspace and social media existed in the 19th century, the tagline for Liszt would probably have been #Sex #Drugs #Classical Music #FranzLiszt.

Liszt was the first musician to have the piano placed in profile, so that the audience would be able to see his facial expression. He was also the first pianist to perform from memory, flouting the traditional view that to perform without music is a sign of disrespect to the composer. As a composer, Liszt’s output consists of over one thousand works. And until today only the Australian pianist Leslie Howard has recorded all of Liszt’s piano works (for Hyperion). Liszt’s one-movement symphonic poems, as well as the late piano pieces, were seen by many as works which were to have significant influence on the next generation of composers. Some argued that Liszt’s experimental use of harmonies (in particular in the late works) was prophetic in its foreshadowing of atonality, paving the way for the works of Scriabin, Debussy and Schoenberg in the early part of the 20th century.

LisztLiszt’s life and music have been the subject of numerous film adaptations. On one hand, Charles Vidor’s Song Without End (1960) won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score, as well as a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture. On the other hand, Ken Russell’s Lisztomania (1975), based on the novel Nélida, written by Liszt’s first important mistress, the Countess Marie d’Agoult, was notorious for its re-imagining of Wagner as a vampire (yes you read that correctly…) and its use of giant phalluses, reminiscent of Japan’s Shinto Kanamara Matsuri. One of the 20th century’s greatest pianist, Sviatoslav Richter, played the role of Franz Liszt in the 1952 Russian film entitled The Composer Glinka, while Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody in C Sharp Minor was immortalised by the evergreen animated duo of Tom and Jerry.

Recommended listening (all of which can be found on YouTube)

Années de Pèlerinage (Books 1 and 2): Lazar Berman

Vallée d’Obermann (from the 1st Book of Années de Pèlerinage): Claudio Arrau

Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (from the 3rd Book of Années de Pèlerinage): Claudio Arrau

Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses): Claudio Arrau

Two Legends: St François d’Assise: La prédication aux oiseaux and St François de Paule marchant sur les flots: Alfred Brendel

Mephisto Waltz No. 1: Evgeny Kissin

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp Minor: Benno Moiseiwitsch

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D Flat Major: Martha Argerich

Liebestraume No. 3 in A flat Major: Frederic Lamond

Études de concert No. 2 in F Minor (La leggierezza): Martha Argerich

Études de concert No.3 in D Flat Major (Un sospiro): Frederic Lamond

6 Grandes Études de Paganini: Andre Watts (Live Recording from Japan 1988)

12 Études d’exécution trancendente: Lazar Berman (Live Recording from Milan 1976)

12 Études d’exécution trancendente: Boris Berezovsky (Live Recording from Roque d’Antheron 2002)

Études d’exécution trancendente No. 5 in B Flat Major (Feux Follet): Vladimir Ashkenazy

Ballade No.2 in B Minor: Vladimir Horowitz (Live Recording from The Met 1981)

Piano Sonata in B minor: Mikhail Pletnev

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major: Martha Argerich

Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major: Sviatoslav Richter

Piano Transcription of Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte: Louis Lortie

Piano Transcription of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture: Jorge Bolet

Piano Transcription of Isolde’s Liebestod (from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde): Michael Low

 

As a teenager, Michael Low studied piano under the guidance of Richard Frostick before enrolling in London’s prestigious Centre for Young Musicians, where he studied composition with the English composer Julian Grant, and piano with the internationally acclaimed pedagogue Graham Fitch. During his studies at Surrey University in England, Michael made his debut playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in the 1999 Guildford International Music Festival, before graduating with Honours under the tutelage of Clive Williamson. In 2000, Michael obtained his Masters in Music (also from Surrey University), specialising in music criticism, studio production and solo performance under Nils Franke. An international scholarship brought Michael to the University of Cape Town, where he resumed his studies with Graham Fitch. During this time, Michael was invited to perform Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto for The Penang Governer’s Birthday Celebration Gala Concert. In 2009, Michael obtained his Doctorate in Music from the University of Cape Town under the supervision of Hendrik Hofmeyr. His thesis set out to explore the Influence of Romanticism on the Evolution of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes. Michael has also worked with numerous eminent teachers and pianists, including Nina Svetlanova, Niel Immelman, Frank Heneghan, James Gibb, Phillip Fowke, Renna Kellaway, Carolina Oltsmann, Florian Uhlig, Gordon Fergus Thompson, Francois du Toit and Helena van Heerden.

Michael currently holds teaching positions in two of Cape Town’s exclusive education centres: Western Province Preparatory School and Herschel School for Girls. He is very much sought after as a passionate educator of young children.

By |

69daeebbf576e2f2b8bb5ec357b5b67d

Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?

I started to play the piano when I was 9, but the real “call” to music as a career came later, around 14… I liked almost all subjects at school, but none of them was giving me the same sensations that I felt while I was playing the piano, and sitting at my desk at school I found myself thinking what I would like to play, people I wished to play with or the next occasion to perform in public… therefore I understood that it could be worthwhile to spend my life making music.

Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Among my teachers, the strongest influence is the Italian maestro Sergio Fiorentino. Besides being an exceptionally gifted pianist and musician, he was an extremely humble man, a true gentleman (the kind you can hardly find nowadays), one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. The most significant thing I took from his lessons is the importance of the natural flow of music, and to give priority to the composer rather than the interpreter: his Beethoven was German, his Rachmaninoff Russian, his Cimarosa Italian… He also had the most impressive technical skills I have ever heard, but he used them always as a tool to better realize musical ideas, never to show how huge his talent was.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

To push myself against the odds, and take the responsibility myself to make my dreams come true, with all the consequences that entails. I come from a very simple family. All I had was my wish to become a musician: no one in my family and friends could help me to fulfill my goals, neither with money nor with culture and advice. And despite a strong personality, sometimes you get tired, because if you really want something, soon or later you’ll find a way to pursue it. Never give up.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

Well, I am hardly ever really proud of a performance; when it goes really well I feel a mix of happiness and adrenaline. It’s great to have been truly inside music, but what makes me particularly happy is when people tell me, after the concert, that they felt deep emotions flowing in the hall, and looking in their eyes I see they’re really moved. This is what music is for. Scientific studies discovered that during a musical performance the brains of musicians and audience tend to work at the same frequencies. This is simply amazing and proves that communication during a concert is not only intended in a metaphorical sense.

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

I feel very close to the late romantic repertoire, like some of Rachmaninoff’s works; I also feel comfortable with the Argentinian composers of the 20th century like Ginastera and Guastavino. It might have something to do with my Italian blood and my passionate temperament: I love the mix of the Latin character with the Progressive tendency in Ginastera and with the popular tradition in Guastavino, the result is an extremely characterized style with a perfect balance between such different elements.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Until a couple of years ago I was more free to follow my fantasies and desires of the moment… Now with my concert activity increasing, I have to take into account my medium-to-long-term plans. Anyway, despite what I must play, I always struggle to take the time to study what I need for my personal growth and for my personal pleasure.

Also, I constantly try to keep some contemporary music in my recital programs. A few years ago, during my first playing of some preludes by a Finnish composer, some of his words introducing the composition impressed me: “there’s no old music and new music, there’s only new music, because every old music has been new music once”. This is why it has no meaning for me to play a concert without at least one piece by a living composer.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

I don’t have a venue where I perform as a habit, for now. Nonetheless I felt a very special feeling with two audiences: in Prague and London. I was impressed by people’s education, elegance and sensitivity in Prague, and never felt so well understood, musically. And I fell in love with London, a deeply concentrated audience, no one was there for other reasons but listening (well) to music. And London is so energizing, an artist needs so many inputs… many people in central and south Europe don’t like London but I really do.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

At the moment I’m enjoying Rachmaninoff’s Elegy and the Cantos Populares by Carlos Guastavino. Among the pieces I often play with great pleasure, Liszt’s Paraphrase on the Quartetto from Verdi’s Rigoletto. It’s a masterpiece of the truly inspired Italian melody (what we call “cantabile”) and the perfect knowledge of conducting parts (Verdi used to keep on his bedside table the scores of Haydn and Beethoven’s string quartets).

I have to admit that I don’t really listen to classical music very often in my free time, but when I do it’s usually from my laptop or tablet. The internet is great for that: I also like to watch interviews and documentaries about people like Horowitz, Michelangeli, Rachmaninoff, from whose words we can learn so much about what music means in a life. I love that video in which Horowitz plays Schumann’s Traumerei in Moscow (when he went back to Russia to give a recital, the last one in his country, at the Conservatory): the atmosphere was so full of palpable emotion that many people in the audience couldn’t resist crying… no words were needed. That’s why music was considered by Schopenhauer the highest among the arts.

Who are your favourite musicians?

The ones who decide to take the courage to help others, without asking for something in exchange. Rachmaninoff helped so many musicians, and so did Schumann. It requires an effort, nowadays: we live in an extremely competitive world and it seems that every success of another musician is a missed one for another. I do not share that way of thinking: everyone’s success is a marked point for music, consequently a marked point for every musician.

But speaking of people I find inspiring, I very much like Maxim Vengerov’s performances and masterclasses; I also enjoyed watching Andras Schiff’s masterclasses on Beethoven Sonatas and the speech he gave about his performance of Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier. And, overall, what I can watch and watch without getting tired is Sergio Fiorentino. On the internet you can find not only his performances but also some “musical interviews” which will surprise you in many ways.
 
What is your most memorable concert experience?

Recently I debuted at Shanghai Symphony Hall. It was a great sensation and I was thrilled about performing in such a concert hall, walking down the corridors seeing on the walls the photos of the greatest concert musicians ever and thinking “I have been walking on the same ground in a while”. I was wondering if people would like my repertoire and my way of playing… then, after the last note and during the encores, the audience was so warm and enthusiastic that I completely forgot my doubts. I think that in the end when you put a true message inside your notes, it reaches the destination, regardless of how far the country and the local culture can be from yours.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

In my opinion the most important thing to understand before deciding to dedicate your life to music is this: working with music is working on (and with) yourself, first. It requires great honesty, humbleness, a strong will and overall you should like the idea of starting a new research project every day, every time you deal with the same piece of music. You must develop the capability of listening to others and recognizing their own value. In other words, I believe you have to be a good human being first, then work hard to become a good musician.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Still making music and traveling as much as possible. I like discovering new places, cultures, people, foods; I can’t get tired of that, and I can’t spend too much time in the same place.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Enjoy the beautiful moments of life, possibly sharing them with my loved ones.

What is your most treasured possession?

I think the less you possess the more free you are, and I love freedom. I tend to spend my money on life experiences rather than objects. Till some years ago I thought that my piano was my treasured possession, then, moving to another country without it, I discovered my treasure is music, which is inside me, not in a specific keyboard of 88 keys. Actually I like to think of myself not as a pianist, but as a musician who uses the piano.

What is your present state of mind?

Enthusiastic! I’m more and more involved in my new project, whose name is ‘Ritratti’ (Portraits). It’s a new recording, music around the idea of the portrait, by 20th century and contemporary composers, and a tour, in which I’ll meet other artists and work in collaboration with them. It will take me in US, Australia, Canada and even farther… I can’t wait.

Cristina Cavalli’s ‘Ritratti’ project is now live on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site. Full details here

Cristina Cavalli, Italian born, began studying music with Lidia Palo Giorgi and graduated in Piano at the Conservatory “G. Nicolini” of Piacenza and in Chamber Music at the Conservatory “B. Maderna” of Cesena; alongside her academic path she attended courses and masterclasses with notable musicians, among which most important to her were the Italians Sergio Fiorentino, Pier Narciso Masi and Marisa Somma. She continued her studies at the Accademia Incontri col Maestro of Imola, where she obtained the Master Diploma in Chamber Music. She appears frequently in concerts both as soloist and as chamber music partner, in a repertoire ranging from the 17th century to contemporary music. Her interest in this latter has enabled her to enrich her musical experience by taking part in important events such as Contemporary Music in Streaming, Novurgia (Milan), Dentro la Musica (Rome, Accademia di Santa Cecilia) and Festival di Nuovo Musica (Reggio Emilia). Several works by European and American composers have been dedicated to her, and she is often asked to give the First Playing of new piano pieces (Milan, Shanghai, London, Helsinki, Belgrade, Rome among others). She has played for the Universities of Macerata, Piacenza and Bologna and has recorded for the Italian national TV channels RaiSat3, Canale10, and the Finnish Alfa TV; her performances have been broadcasted by Radio Vaticana, Radio Belgrade and many others.

As soloist and chamber musician she has appeared in important venues in Europe and Asia, including Shanghai Symphony Hall, Sala Verdi of Milan, Auditorium Parco della Musica of Rome, Wuxi Grand Theatre and Shandong Grand Theatre (Jinan) in China, Zus Concert Hall of Prague, Teatro Ateneo of Madrid, Teatro Cavallerizza of Reggio Emilia, St. James Piccadilly in London, Sala Eutherpe and Auditorio Caja España of Léon and Teatro Ruskaja of Rome, always drawing success and great feeling with the audience. She performed in United Kingdom, Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Serbia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, China and Inner Mongolia; last May 2015 she made her debut at Shanghai Symphony Hall with a very successful solo recital, carrying on her first China Tour with eight concerts and three masterclasses. Ms Cavalli is an official member of ECMTA, European Chamber Music Teachers’ Association (Helsinki), ILAMS, Ibero Latin American Music Association (London) and she is also Honorary Advisor of IIME, International Institute for Music Education (Honk Kong). Parallel with traditional concert activities, she is constantly collaborating with other artists to creative projects in which music is combined and synthesized with different arts. In 2010 she presented Mediterraneo, a musical journey along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, starting from some Italian music suggestions and ending with Flamenco. Between 2012 and 2014 she ran the artistic direction of Chamber Music in Italy (concerts and masterclasses in the beautiful island of Ischia) and Florestano in Roma (music and more in the heart of Rome). She is now engaged in her new project, Ritratti (Portraits).

In her vision, Ms. Cavalli privileges the development and diffusion of classical music among people of all ages, country and condition; because of this spirit of sharing, she is often involved in charity initiatives, seeing music as a powerful way to improve and enrich people and life, children’s life in particular.

Cristina currently lives in Madrid.

www.cristinacavalli.com

By |

LISZT – The importance of Liszt in the piano world is reflected in two articles devoted to his life and work. The first is by Conor Farrington:

The great Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt was born on 22nd October 1811 in the village of Raiding, in present-day Austria. In the course of his long life Liszt gathered to himself an unusually generous share of achievement and adulation, bestriding the Romantic nineteenth century like a musical colossus and dominating artistic circles from Paris to Rome and from Budapest to Weimar. As a child prodigy he held all Europe spellbound, and later, as probably the greatest concert pianist in musical history, his particular brand of iconoclastic brilliance astonished and bewildered all who attended his concerts. Inspired by Paganini and Chopin, Liszt developed a pianistic technique that was simultaneously transcendental and lyrical. By inventing the solo piano ‘recital’ and by playing only from memory, he also transformed concert practice and elevated the role of the interpretive artist.

In his role as itinerant virtuoso, Liszt travelled the length and breadth of Europe, even visiting Istanbul as a guest of the Sultan; but it was in Weimar that he settled in 1848, having retired from the concert platform at the height of his power in order to focus on serious composition. From then until his departure in 1861, Liszt composed a series of masterpieces – most notably the Piano Sonata in B Minor and the Faust Symphony – while somehow finding time to conduct the court orchestra in world premieres of operas by Schumann, Wagner and many others. In this period, Liszt also developed the orchestral genre of the Symphonic Poem in works such as Les Preludes, Orpheus and Hamlet, and pioneered the masterclass as a method for teaching the many piano students who flocked to Weimar.

Following Weimar, Liszt charted new musical and religious waters in Rome and Budapest, although he frequently returned to the city of Goethe and Schiller in order to teach. In this last third of his life, Liszt worked tirelessly to promote young pianists and composers such as Hans von Bülow and Bedrich Smetana, composed many significant works (including his choral masterpiece Christus), and, in his final years, ventured into new realms of musical impressionism and even atonality with pieces such as the choral work Via Crucis and piano works such as Nuages Gris, the Mephisto Polka, and the Bagatelle sans tonalité he composed in 1885, the year before he died.

Liszt bridged the worlds of Czerny and Debussy, and was at the forefront of many significant artistic developments; the child prodigy whom Beethoven had kissed became Wagner’s friend and colleague and an inspiration to Ravel and Bartok. Liszt excelled as virtuoso, composer, conductor, and teacher, not to mention his activities as writer, correspondent, and benefactor, and it is no exaggeration to say that he singlehandedly changed the course of musical history. Liszt garnered many tributes from figures such as Chopin, who once remarked that ‘I would like to steal from him the way he plays my studies’, while Wagner (grudgingly) admitted that his own treatment of harmony had been transformed by his knowledge of Liszt’s works. Even Brahms, in many ways implacably opposed to Liszt, held that Liszt’s many operatic piano paraphrases and transcriptions represented the ‘true classicism’ of the piano.

Yet he also attracted a weighty measure of opprobrium. Some found his extreme virtuosity distasteful – Schumann described it as ‘showing too much of the tinsel and the drum’ – while for others his compositions themselves were the stumbling block. Schumann’s wife Clara condemned Liszt’s works as ‘stilted, impotent weeds’, while the young Brahms dealt Liszt the ultimate insult of falling asleep during Liszt’s own performance of the Sonata in B Minor. Others railed against Liszt’s personality and his (admittedly somewhat lurid) lifestyle, objecting variously to his relaxed morals, his undeniable vanity, or the contradictions between these enduring character traits and Liszt’s devout Catholicism – contradictions that became even more marked, at least in the eyes of the world, when Liszt was ordained as an Abbé, or deacon, in 1865.

Liszt felt these criticisms very deeply, and told his biographer Lina Ramann that he carried with him ‘a deep sadness of the heart.’ Yet he also frequently declared ‘Ich kann warten’ – ‘I can wait’ – and hoped that true appreciation of his compositions might come about after his death. The extent to which this has happened is debatable. Some of his works, such as the Sonata in B Minor and the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, have become standard repertoire, and some of his more ‘Romantic’ works such as Un Sospiro and the third Liebestraüme are often played on popular classical music radio stations. Nevertheless, the majority of his vast output is performed only rarely, if at all, with many important and beautiful works known only to specialists and members of the various Liszt Societies dotted around the world. In many ways, Liszt is still waiting.

Conor Farrington

Conor Farrington is a writer, composer and academic researcher, based in Cambridge

 

Further reading

 

By |

250px-johannespassion
First page of the autograph manuscript of St John Passion
Hearing J S Bach’s St John Passion in a Baroque church, as I did on Good Friday, connected this powerful and stirring work more closely to its original conception and performance. This was the annual Good Friday performance at St John’s Smith Square, a Baroque church in the heart of Westminster, given by Polyphony with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Stephen Layton.

Bach composed his Johannes Passion (St John Passion) in 1724, the composer’s first year as director of church music in Leipzig. The work received its first performance on 7 April 1724, at Good Friday Vespers, at the St Nicholas Church. The work is in two sections, intended to flank a sermon, and the text, which retells the events of Good Friday leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, death and deposition from the Cross, is drawn from chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of John in the Luther Bible. To the modern audience, the text may seem arcane, and the unfolding narrative feels almost operatic, but to the congregation in Bach’s church, it would have been entirely familiar, as were the chorales which used well-known hymn tunes and texts. The work comprises choruses, chorales, arias and recitatives, with some highly effective and arresting “word painting” to reflect the meaning of certain words or passages.

In this performance, the role of St John the Evangelist was sung by Stuart Jackson whose tenor voice was eloquent, pure and mellifluous. Jackson was joined by Neal Davies, a sombre Christus, whose interplay with Roderick Williams’ Pilate was gripping and intense. Julia Doyle, Iestyn Davies, and Gwilym Bowen all responded with sensitivity to the spiritual substance of the text and the profound drama of the narrative. Julia Doyle’s soprano arias were especially luminous, while Iestyn Davies’ counter-tenor was clear and ethereal.

Polyphony sang with a full, rounded sound with impressively crisp diction which brought a dramatic immediacy to the text, for example in the chorus when Christ is brought before Pilate and the choir become the baying crowd. Stephen Layton drew a rich, colourful sound from the OAE with some particularly fine contributions from the woodwind and an elegant cello continuo. The pacing of the drama was also expertly judged by Layton with impactful and moving pauses and longer silences to allow the audience time to digest and reflect upon the highly charged and emotional narrative.