Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/21/2011, uploaded on 03/15/2012

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.

Interestingly, Liszt chose only one excerpt from the revolutionary Tristan und Isolde to transform into a piano solo: the oft-performed and intensely dramatic Liebestod from the opera’s final scene. Occurring at the very end of the opera, Isolde mourns over the body of her fallen lover, Tristan, with the words “How softly and gently he smiles, how sweetly his eyes open.” In his transcription, Liszt remains faithful to Wagner’s original score, merely dispensing with much of the vocal music and giving highlight to the intense and marvelous orchestral music of the scene (though Liszt transcription is slightly shorter in duration than the original scene). The music begins tragically with a languishing melody over discords in the left hand, and settling uneasily on a diminished seventh harmony. Then, it turns yearning and beautiful as the scene’s passionate melody, the consequence of a motivic struggle established in the opera’s prologue, begins and grows in ever-increasing intensity, moving onward in bittersweetness towards its climax. From there it recedes, as Isolde gently falls onto the body of her lover, and the tragic scene comes to an end.      Joseph DuBose

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Isolde's Liebestod    Richard Wagner, arr. by Franz Liszt

Isolde’s “Love Death” is the last aria, the dramatic finale of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. It brings the opera to a close as Isolde sings over Tristan's body.

Liszt made over a dozen of Wagner’s adaptations, this being the most well-known and one of the best “re-orchestrated” works. It starts with a thunder-like opening, bringing a feeling of suspense over the whole piece. Followed by pianissimo, the aria takes the longest path of development, with wandering melodies and picturesque orchestrations that make one forget what instrument is being played. The climax coincides with Isolde’s death, after which everything soothes and fades away into eternity.     Anna Shelest

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.