2011 is of course the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, critic and teacher.
Believe it or not, I first heard Les Preludes in an arrangement for Wind Ensemble. I immediately fell in love with the work. The arrangement works, unlike some other wind band arrangements made from orchestral works. Don't worry we won't be watching or discussing the band arrangement.
Les Preludes, S. 97, is the third in a series of 13 symphonic poems, a genre he invented, usually described as a piece of music that is based on an a story or pictoral ideas, typically made up of a single movement intended for symphony orchestra. This idea was not new; Byrd (The Bells), Janequin (La Chasse) and Berlioz (Symphonie Fantastique) had all written works attempting this. Th form (the term comes from Liszt himself) came about because of his desire to combine the programatic qualities of the concert overture with the musical complexities of the opening movement of symphonies. This form would be taken up by such composers as Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Franck and Strauss.
In 1847, he had retired from the recital stage in order to concentrate on composing at the suggestion of Princess Carolyne. A year later he moved to Weimar, where the Majority (12) of these works were written. Not only would he compose a substantial amount of works during this time but he would mount 44 operas at the Weimar Court Theatre (the most notable: the premier of Wagner's Lohengrin).
Although third in arrangement among the Symphonic Poems, it's material comes from an earlier project; an overture to Les Quatre Elements, S.80, a series of four works for Men's Chorus and 2 pianos (later orchestrated). In 1844, Liszt had been asked by a German choir to compose a new work for a concert. He composed Les aquilons (Joseph Autran) in a single day and added the remaining three works also based on poems of Autran (La terre, Les flots and Les astres) in 1845. These works were never published and only Les aquilons was ever performed. The poems themselves were not published until 1856. In an 1852 letter to Autran, Liszt indicated that he had orchestrated the pieces and had planned on adding an overture.
This seems to be the only thing music scholars can agree on. I won't get into the controversies (for an excellent analysis Wikipedia has one) except to say one has to do with when exactly Liszt decided to repurpose the overture and call it Les Preludes. And the other has to do with the title and the poem by Lamartine.
The full title of the symphonic poem is Les Preludes (d'apres Lamartine) refers to the following Ode of Alphonse de Lamartine (the original French can be found here)...
The wave that kisses the shore,
What is she complaining to her shores?
Why the reed on the beach
Why is the stream in the shade
They make sad chords?
What moaned the dove
When, in the silence of the woods
Only with the faithful dove,
Love that beat its wings,
Kisses stifle her voice?
And you, who you softly book
The sweet smile of happiness,
And the look that you get drunk,
Kill me, make me relive
What are you complaining about my heart?
Younger than the early dawn,
More clear that this flood pure
Your soul to happiness just hatched,
And no breath ever yet
Did tarnish the blue wave.
However, if your heart yearns
Some weight mysterious
On your features if joy expires,
And if everything about your smile
Shines a tear in your eyes
Alas! that is our weakness
Bending under his happiness
As a reed lowers a breath,
Gives emphasis to the sadness
Even the cry of pleasure;
I am unable to find who did this translation of the poem, but the rest of the translation can be found here.
One would think that a composer who was inspired by a poem would include the entire poem or the relevant parts of it on a page of the score. Not so in this case, the preface, written by Princess Wittgenstein is one of several she had written for the symphonic poems. The preface that appears in the score for Les Preludes, is mostly original and only quotes the original poem once.
The Preface
What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn,
the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—
Love is the glowing dawn of all existence;
but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm,
the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions,
the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar;
and where is the cruelly wounded soul which,
on issuing from one of these tempests,
does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom,
and when "the trumpet sounds the alarm",
he hastens, to the dangerous post,
whatever the war may be,
which calls him to its ranks,
in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy.
Les Preludes was premiered on Febraury 23, 1854 and was published in 1856.
Without further adieu Liszt's Les Preludes
An interesting use of Les Preludes was in the old Flash Gordon Serials as background music.
Here's the finale from Interlochen...
Other sources used in this diary in addition to the Wikipedia article are the liner notes of the Philips CD Liszt: Complete Tone Poems Vol 1, this website, New Grove (1980) and the score.
Next week: TBD
Coming Weeks: Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution (one of my favorite works), Liszt: Either the Dante Symphony or the Faust Symphony, The Music of Tomas Luis de Vittoria, William Walton's Facade, Gian Carlo Menotti: Various works, Andreas Hammerschmidt