Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/29/2010, uploaded on 05/31/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes
Unlike Franz Liszt, Ravel did not call himself a virtuoso, but wrote for pianists who followed Liszt's daring and demanding writing. Liszt could play almost everything written by the time he was 10, and his searching intelligence sent him eagerly after new sounds, tonalities, and narrative effects.  Although he never wrote an opera, he found a narrative base for almost everything.  With Wagner, later his son-in-law, Liszt promoted "Music of the Future," that is, instrumental music which conveyed a dramatic scene or situation.  Although a premiere performer of Beethoven, his own music multiplied the sound of the piano, evolved new narrative forms and made the recital hall a theater.

In our age of instant access to almost every piece of music extant, it is easy to forget how slowly news of the explosive world of opera spread in opera's golden age.  Liszt, and others of the age of virtuosos, wrote fantasies and meditations on the operas they heard as a way of letting audiences hear the newest operatic news. Liszt made frequent transcriptions to vary his own programs but also to spread the word about Rossini, Bellini and a host of others.

The meditation on Gounod's Faust had wider meanings, too, for Liszt was drawn to stories of the Devil.  He wrote a Faust Symphony  with choral finale and hugely successful Mephisto Waltzes and Polkas. His method involved playing an introduction, glimpses of arias and significant scenes, and a dazzling conclusion that exalted both opera and his enormous gift.

Program notes by Daniel Webster.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.