Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 05/23/2006, uploaded on 01/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Orage (Storm) from Book I Années de Pèlerinage: Suisse      Franz Liszt

Hungarian Franz Liszt was the greatest pianist of his time, if not of all times. An incomparable virtuoso, he literally invented modern-day piano technique, exploiting the possibilities of his instrument as none had done before him. But Liszt was also a man of insatiable intellectual curiosity, devouring the literature of his time, and travelling extensively all over Europe. His Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), composed during the 1830s and the 1840s, were inspired by some of the places he visited during those years. Orage (Storm) and Vallée d'Obermann (The Valley of Obermann) are part of the first set, Switzerland.  Liszt inscribed the following poems by Byron before each of the works:

Storm:

But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

Valley of Obermann:

Could I embody and unbosom now

That which is most within me - could I wreak

My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw

Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe - into one word,

And that word were Lightning, I would speak;

But as it is, I live and die unheard,

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

Sodi Braide

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.