Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 03/26/2011, uploaded on 12/10/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Besides austere experimental pieces such as Nuages gris, some pieces of Liszt’s late period were of a deeply religious nature. Interestingly, the abandonment of the lavish writing of his younger years and the economical means of composition to which he turned reflects the humility and piousness of his beliefs. One such piece is Sancta Dorothea composed in October 1877 while Liszt was in Rome. It opens with four measures of rippling triplets underpinning a reiterated F-sharp in the treble as the bass moves upward stepwise creating a drawn out cadence towards the tonic of E major. The piece’s melody, a simple and steady moving hymn-like tune, appears in the treble and shadowed in the bass a third lower, while the triplets of the introduction continue as harmonic support. After its completion, the melody is repeated again an octave lower and grows in intensity with subtle changes to the accompaniment. The closing motivic figure of the melody, resigning into a sigh during the melody’s first appearance, this time sets in motion a brief coda. Treble and bass engage in contrapuntal imitation of a motif taken from the principal melody while the still supportive triplets sound resonantly in the lower register of the piano. Finally, the triplets cease and with reverent chords and a final appearance of the melody, once again in the upper register, the piece comes to a pious and serene close.        Joseph DuBose