The Bicentenary of Franz Liszt

Two hundred years ago today, Liszt Ferenc, better known to us as Franz Liszt, was born to Marie Anna Lager and Ádám Liszt in the Kingdom of Hungary.  In the service of Prince Esterházy, his father played a number of instruments and counted Haydn, Hummel and Beethoven as personal acquaintances.

As talented musicians are wont to do, Liszt started playing the piano early, and appeared in concerts at age 9.  He was to develop friendships with leading musicians of his time, including Berlioz, Paganini, Hans von Bulow and Wagner, who influenced him and were influenced by him.  For example, Paganini’s superb skills on the violin spurred Liszt on to become a virtuoso piano player.

For a good part of his life, Liszt travelled frequently and more or less divided his time among Rome, Weimar and Budapest, playing music and directing musical events.  His biggest legacy is his compositions, which can be divided into two types: transcriptions of works by other composers and those of his own creation.

Although having been vaguely aware of his piano works for a long time, I am a relative newcomer to Liszt’s music, and certainly not qualified to discuss it in any detail.  But I do know this much: his piano music can be technically daunting, and he practically invented the symphonic poem format.

As I tried to find out more, I came across some interesting sources.  As always, the first stop for any information is Wikipedia, which has a long entry on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Liszt

From there you can navigate to a page which contains a full list of his compositions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_works_of_Franz_Liszt

Allmusic is a good source of information about popular music for me, but it seems to be lacking in classical music.  Nevertheless, its entry on Liszt is a good starting point for further investigation:

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/franz-liszt-q7627

Naxos, the pioneer of affordable classical music CDs, has a long list of items on its catalogue with recordings of Liszt’s music:

http://www.naxos.com/person/Franz_Liszt/22599.htm

I recently stumbled upon an excellent web site, apparently maintained by author Rich DiSilvio:

http://www.d-vista.com/OTHER/franzliszt.html

On this site, not only are there detailed sections with commentary on his biography and his role in the development of music, there is also has a list of recommended recordings and bibliography.  What I find most fascinating is its list of links to other sites with information relevant to the composer:

http://www.d-vista.com/OTHER/Links.htm

Of course, it’s easy to find a list of videos of Liszt’s music on Youtube.  With the help of Toobbox.com, I have compiled a list of my own personal playlist of Youtube videos:

http://toobbox.com/playlist/franz-liszt--11243

And to whet your appetite further, you can create your own radio channel of music similar to that of LIszt on last.fm:

http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Franz%2BLiszt/similarartists

But if you insist on generating a list of videos on Youtube, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=liszt&aq=1

If you are anywhere in Indiana from October 27^th to November 13^th, you may want to attend one of the concerts the Indiana University is putting on to celebrate Liszt’s 200^th birthday:

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/19912.html

This is by no means an exhaustive list of sources.  I’m sure you will come across a lot of other sites with interesting information.  If you find one, drop me a line and let me know.

Seniors in the entertainment industry are going strong

No sooner had I finished uploading my blog post about a crop of young female pop talent came the news that veteran singer Tony Bennett had broken a record: at the end of September he became the oldest singer to have a number one hit on the Billboard top albums chart.  Hermione Hoby of the Guardian in the UK says the album sounds like “a fantasy birthday party in full swing”; and Mikael Wood in the LA Times says “it’s a beautiful bummer to hear Winehouse do her best Billie Holiday…”

 

In fact, as far as chart success goes, 2011 seems to be the year of the seniors.  Earlier in the month, Doris Day had just become the oldest artist to have reached the UK top 10 with new material.  Unlike Bennett, whose album consists of material recorded recently, Day didn’t go into the studio to record new material.  Her CD My Heart consists of tracks recorded between 1951 and 1994.  Even then, at 87, she is two years older than Bennett, for the record.  Reviewing the album for the Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick says: “If someone stepped up on X Factor singing like this, they’d be unbeatable.”

 

Bennett and Day are not the only senior artists in recent years to taste chart success.  In September 2009, the BBC reported that Dame Vera Lynn, a favourite entertainer for the British forces during World War II, became the “oldest living artist” to top the UK album charts.  She was 92 at the time, and the album in question was We'll Meet Again - The Very Best of Vera Lynn.  Again, this was not new material, but remarkable as it had knocked Arctic Monkeys off the top.

 

Other artists, of course, have topped the charts at an advanced age.  Actor Clive Dunn, famous for his role in the sitcom Dad’s Army, was 51 when he had a surprise hit called Grandad , which topped the UK chart in 1971.

 

Frank Sinatra was almost 54 when his hit My Way spent 75 weeks from April 1969 to September 1971 among the top 40 in the UK, but it never went to number one.  Perry Como’s It’s Impossible in February 1971 became his first song to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in more than 12 years, peaking at number ten.  He was 59.  Later in the decade, in 1973, when he was 61, his song And I Love You So reached number 3 on the UK singles chart.

 

In an age of rapid technological advances favouring the young, it’s good to see that seniors in some industries are still showing the way, with help, no doubt, from supporters among the growing legion of baby boomers.  One of the pioneers of rock and roll, Chuck Berry, turns 85 on October 18^th.  I have it on good authority that he usually performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

In the entertainment business, the seniors are going strong.

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Seniors in the entertainment industry are going strong

No sooner had I finished uploading my blog post about a crop of young female pop talent came the news that veteran singer Tony Bennett had broken a record: at the end of September he became the oldest singer to have a number one hit on the Billboard top albums chart.  Hermione Hoby of the Guardian in the UK says the album sounds like “a fantasy birthday party in full swing”; and Mikael Wood in the LA Times says “it’s a beautiful bummer to hear Winehouse do her best Billie Holiday…”

In fact, as far as chart success goes, 2011 seems to be the year of the seniors.  Earlier in the month, Doris Day had just become the oldest artist to have reached the UK top 10 with new material.  Unlike Bennett, whose album consists of material recorded recently, Day didn’t go into the studio to record new material.  Her CD My Heart consists of tracks recorded between 1951 and 1994.  Even then, at 87, she is two years older than Bennett, for the record.  Reviewing the album for the Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick says: “If someone stepped up on X Factor singing like this, they’d be unbeatable.”

Bennett and Day are not the only senior artists in recent years to taste chart success.  In September 2009, the BBC reported that Dame Vera Lynn, a favourite entertainer for the British forces during World War II, became the “oldest living artist” to top the UK album charts.  She was 92 at the time, and the album in question was We'll Meet Again - The Very Best of Vera Lynn.  Again, this was not new material, but remarkable as it had knocked Arctic Monkeys off the top.

Other artists, of course, have topped the charts at an advanced age.  Actor Clive Dunn, famous for his role in the sitcomDad’s Army, was 51 when he had a surprise hit called Grandad , which topped the UK chart in 1971.

Frank Sinatra was almost 54 when his hit My Way spent 75 weeks from April 1969 to September 1971 among the top 40 in the UK, but it never went to number one.  Perry Como’s It’s Impossible in February 1971 became his first song to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in more than 12 years, peaking at number ten.  He was 59.  Later in the decade, in 1973, when he was 61, his song And I Love You So reached number 3 on the UK singles chart.

In an age of rapid technological advances favouring the young, it’s good to see that seniors in some industries are still showing the way, with help, no doubt, from supporters among the growing legion of baby boomers.  One of the pioneers ofrock and roll, Chuck Berry, turns 85 on October 18^th.  I have it on good authority that he usually performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

In the entertainment business, the seniors are going strong.

Vienna Philharmonic under Christoph Eschenbach

October 9th, 2011
Concert Hall,Hong KongCultural Centre
Johannes Brahms	Tragic Overture, Op. 81
Franz Schubert	Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, ‘Unfinished’
	Allegro moderato
	Andante con moto
Gustav Mahler	11 Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
ViennaPhilharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Christoph Eschenbach

It’s no surprise that the programme for Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s visit to Hong Kong should consist of well-known works by composers closely related to its home city; it is quite something else to hear the orchestra’s unique interpretation of these works.

Together with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic is probably the pre-eminent custodian of the Germanic tradition in the classical music repertoire.  Apart from conductor Christoph Eschenbach’s trademark black tunic making him look like a character out of Star Trek, everything about the orchestra is traditional – period instruments, straight-down-the-line interpretation, and respect for the composers’ intentions.

Brahms’ Tragic Overture, Op. 81, supposedly a companion to the jubilant Academic Festival Overture, is dark, brooding and sometimes turbulent, but not tragic in the sense of death and destruction.  In the hands of a less sensitive and capable conductor, it can easily become 15 minutes of unwieldy thickness.  Under the stewardship of  Christoph Eschenbach and the Vienna Philharmonic, however, the overture was sufficiently depressing, but not overwhelmingly distraught.   They managed to wind their way through the various moods with enough contrast and sensitivity to make the work interesting.  The gentleness of the sound produced by the orchestra’s period instruments also helped reduce the sense of ponderousness.  The lower strings, in particular, were lush without being dense.

We may never know whether Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 is genuinely “unfinished”.  All we do know is that his friend Anselm Hünterbrenner didn’t tell anyone about it until decades after his death, and that he had the score for only two full movements.  Given Schubert’s first six symphonies, and the grandeur of the 9^th, the Symphony No. 8 seems to be a “transitional” work – between the early attempts conforming to the classical symphonic form to the artistic breakthrough of the “Great” C Major symphony.

Even when in its most depressed state, Schubert’s music sighs, rather than weeps, as Brahms’ does; or wails, as Mahler’s.  The Vienna Philharmonic’s approach was almost gingerly.  The first movement began with a nondescript theme on the lower strings, followed by a clear statement by oboes and clarinets.  There was good articulation of contrast between glow and gloom without high drama, and of lyricism without sentimentality.

The horns and the oboes stood out in the second movement, which featured two main themes, one light and resigned, and the other emphatic.  Even in delivering the airy parts of the movement, the orchestra maintained a sense of dignity.  In the more serious parts, soothing tenderness underlined the gravity.

Baritone Matthias Goerne joined the orchestra in 11 Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Mahler.  Des Knaben, a collection of folk poems by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, was a rich source of inspiration for Mahler, providing material for his second, third and fourth symphonies.  Compared with his later song symphony, Das Lied von der Erde, Des Knaben’s orchestration is light, giving the voice parts due exposure.

Goerne’s smooth and fluid tone flowed like water in a stream, with a range that reached deep into the territory of the bass.  He manipulated inflections effectively to suit the different emotional contents of the songs, from the sombre death march of Der Schildwache Nachtlied (The Sentinel’s Night Song) to the overt humour of Lob Des hohen Verstandes (Praise of High Intelligence), which reminded me of Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja from Mozart’sMagic Flute.

Deserving particular mention were Rheinlegendchen (Little Rhein Legend), in which Goerne delicately shaped an air of magic and idyllic beauty, and Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Where the fine trumpets blow), in which he glided through a glowing melody of lulling romance.  I only wish that his diction was a little clearer.

The Vienna Philharmonic celebrated the success of its visit with an encore of Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz, a staple in the orchestra’s repertoire.  With his somewhat robotic conducting style, Christoph Eschenbach has brought the orchestra into the 21^st century while preserving its precious heritage.

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