Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 04/21/1997, uploaded on 08/24/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner shared a mutual admiration for each other’s work. Wagner openly admitted that Liszt was his only living contemporary that had an influence on his own music. Liszt, on one occasion, had come to Wagner’s rescue, conducting the premiere of Lohengrin in Wiemer in 1850 while its composer suffered in political exile because of his part in the Dresden uprising. When Wagner passed away in Venice in 1883, it was an emotional blow to the aged Liszt and not surprisingly wrote four compositions in memory of his friend and colleague. Liszt also showed his appreciation of his friend and colleague much earlier by transcribing selections from his operas for piano solo.

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes) was Wagner’s first operatic success. Composed during 1838-40, Rienzi was very much in the grand opera tradition of Meyerbeer, so much so that Hans von Bülow jokingly called it “Meyerbeer’s best opera.”  Though it bears little outward resemblance to the epic music dramas that would later come from Wagner’s pen, it was nevertheless a crucial turning point in his career. It established Wagner as a formidable operatic composer, certainly one to be reckoned with, and garnered critical acclaim throughout Europe. Rienzi even drew praise from Eduard Hanslick, who would later become one of Wagner’s most vocal critics and a staunch supporter of Johannes Brahms. A few months after its premiere in Dresden, Wagner was appointed Kapellmeister at the Dresden Opera.

As Wagner’s concept of opera and music drama changed, his opinion of Rienzi declined and even saw it as an embarrassment. He lamented that he “saw it only in the shape of ‘five acts’, with brilliant ‘finales’, with hymns, processions and the musical clash of arms.” Though Wagner may have thought it a failure, Franz Liszt nevertheless thought it worthy enough to pay tribute to in a transcription for piano solo. Phantasiestück über Motive aus Rienzi (Fantasy on Motives from Rienzi) was composed in 1859, nearly two decades after Rienzi’s premiere in which time Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser had both been staged, and the same year the revolutionary Tristan und Isolde was completed. Liszt gives Wagner’s themes a lavish and virtuosic treatment in his Phantasiestück. Prefaced with a grandiose introduction based on the Santo spirito cavaliere heard in Act III, Liszt presents Rienzi’s prayer Allmächt’ger Vater (Almighty Father) from the beginning of Act V, the most famous aria from the opera. Liszt then turns to the martial Doch höret ihr der Trompete Ruf from Act I, titling it “Call to Battle” in his score, to conclude the Fantasy.      Joseph DuBose

courtesy of the Liszt-Kodaly Society of Spain