Liszt as composer

[panic]

I believe that in spite of all the training in theory and composition and all the practice one can do at it, there's a certain point, in composing, where some musical thought has to just click in one's mind as the basis for a piece or idea. It's hard to define exactly why it happens, but I'm sure the people that compose here have experienced it too. You just kind of get something in your head, a spark of inspiration.

Based on a lot of Liszt pieces I've studied and listened to, I think there's a lot of evidence that Liszt just didn't have that spark as a composer a lot of the time. Which is kind of weird, seeing as how he composed so much, but it's nevertheless possible. The more I listen to Liszt, the more I realize that what we think of as self-devised melodies and ideas are borrowed from other sources and merely stated eloquently by Liszt. Most of the material in the Sonata is borrowed, and you can pinpoint many spots in which he takes material specifically from Alkan. The Ballade No. 2 is a complete rip-off of Alkan's "Le Vent," no-holds-barred. I've heard that the melody of Sospiro is taken from another source. The melody of the first movement of Concerto 1 seems inspired by the Eroica Symphony. Totentanz uses the Dies Irae motif. Liszt wrote long, complex, magnificent pieces like these, but the question is, did he have the spark of inspiration in his mind, or was he inspired by other sources most of the time?

You have the Liszt pieces in which it's evident that he did come up with the material on his own, and in which the material itself is pretty bad. The Rhapsodie Espagnole has a melody that a nine-year old kid would scoff at. In the first half of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, he tries to embellish and make as much use as possible out of an uninspired and boring melody. And in Apres une lecture du Dante, he uses a descending chromatic scale very well as the melody to represent Hell, but it's still a descending chromatic scale. And the second melody in F-sharp, if you remove the double octaves and all the textural embellishments, is really a stagnant idea, more like a chord progression than a melody.

Then you have all the transcriptions and quotings he did, in which no musical spark of imagination is necessary. All he does is state eloquently what somebody else came up with. The results are often very, very nice (Adelaide), but they are not his.

And lastly, there's a lot of Liszt pieces in which it sounds like he had no idea what he was doing when he started writing, in which the beginnings sound like "I'm just trying to buy myself some time while trying to think of a good musical idea!" Liszt was evidently a big fan of introductions to pieces, but sometimes it seems like he puts the cart before the horse.

So I have to wonder if we sometimes give Liszt more credit than he deserves as a composer. Sure, he wrote a number of very nice and very inspired pieces (most in the Annees de Pelerinage fall into that category), but a lot of his famous works seem to be either borrowed material stated eloquently (the Sonata, the Ballade No.2, the transcriptions), or embellishments of uninspired material (Rhapsodie Espagnole). What do you guys think?

[nanabush]

dude, your crazy, Liszt was a genious... he wrote a hell of alot more music than what you've named... and ur not even positive on some of ur accusations! 

[cherub_rocker1979]

Liszt did more for the piano then anybody ever will.

[burstroman]

Panic, a lot of what you said is truth.  Liszt was a skillful showman and much to be admired for that.  He is, after all is said and done, quite hit and miss, but lots of fun.

[lisztisforkids]

Liszt=God

Beware!  Do not conjure the wrath of Liszt... He commands Devils as well as Angels...

[avetma]

Who are we to judge about such a genious as Liszt were (or any other composer)? I just want to say that all of you who thinks that he was just a showman, should look into his biography and read what he gave to music.

[stevie]

is personal taste entering into this at all?

liszt wrote alot of sh*t, and i mean literally - sh*t, but so did ALOT ALOT ALOT of composers, but they didnt publish them like liszt did!

liszt was one of the greatest piano composers ever, i stand by that, some of what you say makes sense, but ....liszt...true

[stevie]

oh, and the spanish rhapsody melody is a traditional spanish dance called 'la folia'

[apion]

Based on a lot of Liszt pieces I've studied and listened to, I think there's a lot of evidence that Liszt just didn't have that spark as a composer a lot of the time.

Liszt had as much spark as any top-20 composer; arguably he had more spark than Chopin or Rachmaninov.  Liszt was a compositional machine and a pianistic God.

[stormx]

I really cannot trully get into Liszt's music. 

I have listened many times to:
Complete "Hungarian Rapsodies" (Cziffra).
Trascendental Etudes (Arrau).
A double CD with a selection of his most known pieces, includind his piano sonata (Bolet).

Of course, there are some pieces i like. But, i really dont find them as inspired as Chopin's or Beethoven's works.

I know this is a kind of blasphemy, in a forum where Liszt is considered a god, but i have to admit that, in my personal taste, Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Tchaicovsky are all more gifted as creators of good melodies.

[demented cow]

Dear Panic,
your criticisms of Liszt are interesting, a pleasant change from the bile spewed by some ill-informed Liszt-haters, but I think that some of the points you raise would apply equally to plenty of other composers (e.g. Beethoven), suggesting that you should make sure you're not applying double standards:

a) You describe Liszt as uninspired because he uses material from other sources, but plenty of other examples could be cited from other composers:
-Beethoven: the Pathetique sonata is built around framgments lifted from the Bach c-minor partita (as I found while learning both at once). The slow movement (later recycled in the 9th symphony) comes from a theme in the middle of the slow movt of Mozart's c-minor sonata. (Schubert's Bb sonata slow movt has a passaged borrowed from this too.) The first motiv in the scherzo in Beethoven's 5th symphony was deliberately adapted from the finale of Mozart's 40th (we know because he copied this melody into his sketchbooks while working on one of these works.) The 1st theme in the last movt of the 6th symph is based on a traditional melody. (I suspect that Beet's 3rd concerto may have some borrowing from Mozart 24, but I would have to check this more closely.)
-Chopin: The melody in the middle bit of Chopin's first scherzo is a polish folk song.
-Mendelssohn stole one of Luther's hymn melodies in his Reformation symph.

And then you could add many cases where composers recycle their own material:
-Beethoven: Eroica finale/Promethius ballet/Eroica variations
-Beethoven: choral fantasy/ 9th symph finale
-Mozart reused a melody from the clarinet concerto in the middle of the slow movt of piano concerto 27.
-Schubert Wanderer Fantasy/song

b) You say

You have the Liszt pieces in which it's evident that he did come up with the material on his own, and in which the material itself is pretty bad. The Rhapsodie Espagnole has a melody that a nine-year old kid would scoff at. ....And the second melody in F-sharp [in the Dante sonata], if you remove the double octaves and all the textural embellishments, is really a stagnant idea, more like a chord progression than a melody.

I think you should be a bit careful with this type of reasoning. One could cite many similarly 'uninspired' melodies that work perfectly well once one considers other factors like the harmony and texture (e.g. slow movement to Beethoven's 7th, initial arpeggio motif in the Appassionata, first motif in the slow movt of the Appass.).
And who said that music must still sound good after you take away some embellishments the composer added? It's like expecting polyphonic music to sound good if you take out the inner voices.

PS: You make a lot of suggestions about where LIszt got his melodies from. I must check up what you say about the Bm sonata and Alkan. Can you be more specific on how the 1st concerto is a rip-off of the Eroica?

[thalbergmad]

I love Liszts compositions, but I am prepared to admit he was capable of mediocrity, but who wasn't.

In my humble opinion, he was a better Transcriber than Composer and I will always remember him chiefly for what he did to other peoples music, as opposed to his original works.

[gouldfischer]

Hi, panic. So fully I agree to your first post that it seems I have written it myself.

[panic]

demented cow, the comment about the Eroica was kind of my own observation. I wouldn't say ripoff, but I would say inspired.

The melody for the first movement of the Eroica is:
Eb--G-Eb--B-|Eb-G-Bb-Eb--D-|Db, followed by high treble notes in a chord of Db-Eb-G.

The melody for the first movement of the first Liszt concerto is:
Eb---D-Eb--D--Eb-D-Db, also followed by high treble in a chord of Db-Eb-G.

I might be swinging blindly, and perhaps Liszt never even heard the Eroica. But seeing as how I've heard many times that the main purpose of the first Concerto was to impress, rather than to be musically substantial, it doesn't seem entirely unlikely.

[panic]

This one, however, is actually a true ripoff, a plagiarism by Liszt.

This is Alkan's "Le Vent," op. 15 no. 2, composed in 1837, four measures from the beginning.


Here is Liszt's Ballade no. 2, composed in 1852, two measures from the beginning.


It's not hard to see that the chromatic accompaniment, the series of ascensions and descensions, is ripped off by Liszt, taken into the left hand, and stretched out by a factor of two. But that's just the beginning. Notice any similarity in the melody line? The entire melody of Ballade 2, the entire basis for this grand 14-minute piece, is an exact copy of this little section from "Le Vent," taken down a perfect fifth and stretched out to six times its original dimensions - quarter notes become dotted whole notes. There isn't much that Liszt didn't steal from Alkan here, really.

[stevie]

thats interesting, but as long as it sounds good, who gives a funk?

[stevie]

and alkan's theme for le vent is said to have been took from beethoven's 7th, allegretto movement.

let us not forget there are only 12 notes in western music, people are bound to repeat themselves somewhere along the line!

[lisztisforkids]

Liszt transcriptions, and borrowings are often even better than the orginal. His creativity outwieghed almost everybody else in the composing field in middle romantic era.  Sure he ripped people off, but everybody did. Its not fair to pick on him on those grounds. Remember, he was always defending and promoting the 'music of the future'.

If you must pick on Liszt, pick on him for his showmanship. But also remember it was his showmanship that made the piano what it is today.

[mikey6]

Copland said that there surely have been better composer thn Liszt but to deny one his music is to miss a lot of wonderful...stuff (can't remember the exact quote).

[demented cow]

Dear Panic,
very interesting observations.
But I still say that they are irrelevant to an assessment of the quality of Liszt's works. After all, does the fact that Beethoven nicked ideas from Bach and Mozart in writing the Pathetique sonata mean that we should regard it less highly?

perhaps Liszt never even heard the Eroica.

That would be somewhat, um, unexpected given the fact that he transcribed it for piano.

[maxreger]

I hope you didnt spend as much time as it seems on this "re search" of yours... because frankly... its kind of pathetic.

The fact that you dislike some works and or melodic work is plenty ok... afterall, it is aesthetics in play... but, the other ideas you put together (including your funny and absurd comparison between the ballade and le vent) fall well short of anything that deserves any kind of attetion or credit.

In fact, you disregard everything liszt developed for western music within your diatribe... advancements in harmony, that simply put, IMO, put him as THE most important bridge composer between the 19th and 20th centuries. You disregard all his orchestral, choral, and non piano music... which is laughable and only shows you have no real background or foundation for any of your ideas.

The fact that you really think the B minor sonata is "borrowed" from alkan, is just plain laughable... being that the work not only destroys Alkan's in terms of harmonic and motic development, but also stands as probably the most important post beethoven piano WORK.

All in all, im going to go as far as to accuse you of being a poor listener, and getting too caught up in textures and though process (bad at that)... to really see whats going on.

You can feel free to hate all of liszt's works, that would be fine... but to try to discredit someone who might possibly have given more to the latter half of the 19th century, is just laughable.

Maybe you should stop the piano a little, a read up more on harmony, and all that liszt brought to the table... before you make yourself look this bad again.

Lastly, I find it a major problem that alot of people here seem to play piano... and play it well, and have no freaking clue as to WHAT they are playing (no grasp of harmony, composition, form, etc)...

r.toscano

[g_s_223]

Many composers in turn took material from Liszt and transformed it via their own genius. For example, many of Wagner's harmonic and motivic practices were inspired by Liszt's works, and Wagner himself knew this well and wasn't too keen on it being broadly aired. Ravel's Jeux d'eau is virtually a pastiche of Liszt's similar piece about the fountains at the Villa d'Este.

Liszt himself did a great deal for contemporary composers and performers and was most generous with his time and resources.

Amoung 20th century composers, one of the greatest, Stravinsky, is at root a thief of musical ideas: virtually all his works poach previous composers or folk idioms.

[panic]

Well, I apologize for being shortsighted about this topic, and I will try and keep my mouth shut about things like this from now on. Obviously I overstepped my bounds on the Alkan comparison. I recognize that yes, Liszt is an extremely important figure in the history of music, whatever compositional shortcomings he may have had in some of his pieces. Some of Liszt's shorter pieces are as good as any ever composed. I'll keep my ears open for more stuff by him.

[countchocula]

Well, I apologize for being shortsighted about this topic, and I will try and keep my mouth shut about things like this from now on. Obviously I overstepped my bounds on the Alkan comparison. I recognize that yes, Liszt is an extremely important figure in the history of music, whatever compositional shortcomings he may have had in some of his pieces. Some of Liszt's shorter pieces are as good as any ever composed. I'll keep my ears open for more stuff by him.

Well said
His shortcomings may be better explained as over-extensions, I believe.  His vision sometimes exceeded his reach, but he was courageous nonetheless - we should give him credit for trying in these cases.  But usually, musically, he could say exactly what he wanted...
Let's also not ignore the amount of music that was inspired BY Liszt's music - Wagner, Debussy, the atonalists, R.Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Liaponov, the Russian "five" - and many more - were directly influenced, and rightly so.
And yes, Panic, Liszt did know the "Eroica" Symphony!  Geez...
Check out the Alan Walker books about Liszt - definitely required reading material!
OK - Happy practicing!

[BoliverAllmon]

Whether he was a genius rip-off or not is debatable, but I agree with his quality. There are very few things that I enjoy that are Liszt's.

boliver

[pita bread]

Lastly, I find it a major problem that alot of people here seem to play piano... and play it well, and have no freaking clue as to WHAT they are playing (no grasp of harmony, composition, form, etc)...

So what?

[maxreger]

because you can only play the piano up to a certain level that way... and im sure musical though and phrasing is poor on those who dont take the time to understand a work...

thats "SO WHAT"

[pita bread]

because you can only play the piano up to a certain level that way... and im sure musical though and phrasing is poor on those who dont take the time to understand a work...

thats "SO WHAT"

No, it's perfectly possible to phrase and have detail without even knowing what key you're in. And musical thought... you can have brilliant interpretive ideas without being proficient in composition/harmony.

[ravel]

 Watch the leonard bernstein lecture series, specially volume 3, 4, 5
if you just say that lizst didnt have the creative spark because he borrowed melodies from others, etc. well then every one from wagner to stravinsky have borrowed from other composers, 
that in no way takes the credit away from them
they were geniuses , nevertheless!!!
as stravinsky said himself  " a good composer does not imitate, he steals"
very true.