Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 04/19/2006, uploaded on 02/05/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In the late 1830s, Franz Liszt, in the company of Marie d’Agoult travelled through Switzerland and Italy. Inspired by the scenes he witnessed throughout Switzerland, Liszt captured his personal reflections in a set of pieces titled Album d’un voyageur, composed during his travels and published later in 1842. Between 1848 and 1854, he returned to Album d’un voyageur, revising the earlier cycle and expanding the cycle to include Èglogue, which had been published separately, and Orage composed in 1855. The revised cycle was rechristened as Première année: Suisse (“First Year: Switzerland”)—the first volume of his three-part Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”)—and was published in that same year.

Opening Première année: Suisse in majestic heroism is Chapelle de Guillaume Tell, based on the character at the center of the legend of Switzerland’s independence from Habsburg Austria and the birth of the Swiss Confederacy. The piece projects an austere majesty in the opening measures, beginning on a bare octave and building through diverging melody and bass lines until the heroic and solemn C major hymn is reached in the third measure. The central episode changes drastically from the hymn-like character of the opening. Quiet tremolandi on dissonant and dramatic chords underpin mighty horn calls. Liszt even goes so far as to create the aural effect of these calls echoing throughout the Alpine landscape. An Allegro vivace follows the call to arms and gives a brief, though dramatic, portrayal of Tell’s defiance against the Habsburgs. At the conclusion of the Allegro, the C major hymn returns triumphantly. A return of the opening measures, embellished now with full-voiced chords and combined with the horn calls heard earlier, creates a colossal and solemn conclusion.     Joseph DuBose

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Chapelle de Guillaume Tell, from Années de Pélerinage: Suisse         Franz Liszt

Chapelle de Guillaume Tell is an imposing portrait of the Swiss national hero. The nation's struggle for independence would have had strong resonances for Liszt and the score is headed by a quote from Friedrich Schiller; "One for all-and all for one". Trumpets ring through the mountains and valleys in a piece full of hymnic splendour.     Ashley Wass

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.