Liebestraume No.3

[kilmartin]

I've just begun learning Liszt's Liebestraume No. 3. It's pretty much at the outer limit of my ability (at least to play it well), so initially I'm treating it sort of as an etude. My first impression is that, while the piece isn't overly-challenging musically, it presents a whole set of technical challenges which, while difficult, look like they should yield to practice. Anyway, I'd love to hear people's  suggestions for practicing: i.e., exercises and such, or any other advice. (How many cumulative person-hours have gone into practicing a popular piece like this in the 150 years since its publication? Scary thought.... Still, all that practice must have produced an enormous fund of collective wisdom.)

[xvimbi]

My first impression is that, while the piece isn't overly-challenging musically,...

So, what are your thoughts about the musicality aspects of the piece. What mood(s) does it reflect? How should it be performed?

Let's see if you have really done your homework

[brewtality]

I actually found it more challenging musically than technically. I can't really remember any specific practice thing I did when I was learning this, sorry.

[stevie]

the tempo marking in my score is poco allegro, if i remember correctly.

let this be a lesson to all you moist crevices.

[kilmartin]

You put me on the spot, xvimbl, and I'm already regretting my obiter remark on the musicality of Liebestraume, which was, as I said, a first impression, not a considered judgment.

Still, I'll try to rise to your challenge as best I can, if that's to be the price of getting an answer to my actual query.

While longer acquaintance may reveal emotional subtleties that aren't apparent to me now, it seems to me to be pretty straightforward expressively.

The piece as a whole is marked "con affetto", by which Liszt certainly intends not only "with feeling", but also, and more to the point, "with affection", or "with tenderness". At the risk of making it sound more programmatic than it is, I would say that the piece begins with a mood of warm tenderness appropriate between a pair of lovers (dolce cantando), passion is aroused between them (poco crescendo ed agitato), pausing for breath in the first cadenza, only to return yet more forcefully (piu animato con passione) following it. The passion grows continuously (sempre stringendo, sempre piu rinforzando, etc.) to its almost painfully postponed fortississimo climax, followed by the delicious detumescence of the second cadenza. Finally, we return to the tempo primo as the lovers, their passion gratified, relax into slightly playful (I'm thinking of the left-hand chords in the treble) calm sweet harmony (dolce armonioso). I won't say they drift off to sleep in the final bars, because this description is already more literal and programmatic than I'm prepared to stand by.

Anyway, that, very briefly, is prettty much what I think the piece expresses, and if there are hidden depths I'm not aware of, I guess I'm just too shallow to see them. I'm always prepared to learn, however; and I have, as I say, only just begun to learn the piece. It would be wonderful to learn something from it about the human heart, and not just about piano technique.

But all this is by the by. My original question is still what concerns me at the moment: does anyone have suggestions for practicing the technical difficulties the work presents?

[rocketman]

wow -

That's almost exactly how i interpret this piece. This is my romantic piece for the semester. I just finished figuring out the 1st cadenza.

[xvimbi]

You know, rocketman and kilmartin, this is how most people interpret this piece. However, I must disappoint you, because this is absolutely not the meaning of the piece .

Check out https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,4784.0.html reply #7 for the true story.

That's why I was asking whether you made your homework Practically nobody ever goes through the trouble to research the poem that is behind this piece. Please read my post referred to above and then let me know what you think now.

[kilmartin]

Thanks, xvimbl, it's good to have the whole poem. But I don't think it invalidates my interpretation as you seem to think.

The lines Liszt uses as an epigraph are basically a version of carpe diem and what he gives us in the music is, sure enough, the lovemaking, the seizing of the day. The eventual graveside remorse (if you don't seize the day, you'll regret it when it's too late) is implicit but, like the omitted lines of the poem, not actually present in the music.

What Liszt gives us is a triumphant or defiant assertion of love in the face of death, but you can't, I think, point to any bars expressive of the graveside remorse of the latter part of the poem.

But that said, you have persuaded me that it's a deeper work than I thought it was yesterday. Being reminded of death will do that.

[xvimbi]

Thanks, xvimbl, it's good to have the whole poem. But I don't think it invalidates my interpretation as you seem to think.

The lines Liszt uses as an epigraph are basically a version of carpe diem and what he gives us in the music is, sure enough, the lovemaking, the seizing of the day. The eventual graveside remorse (if you don't seize the day, you'll regret it when it's too late) is implicit but, like the omitted lines of the poem, not actually present in the music.

What Liszt gives us is a triumphant or defiant assertion of love in the face of death, but you can't, I think, point to any bars expressive of the graveside remorse of the latter part of the poem.

But that said, you have persuaded me that it's a deeper work than I thought it was yesterday. Being reminded of death will do that.

I think the first strophe already says everything; the second part is only a more direct elaboration on the first part. Death is already in the first strophe. The issue is that there never really was romance in the first place. It's all about missed opportunities, misunderstandings, unrealized love and, on top of it, hurtful behavior. There never was "triumphant or defiant assertion of love" as you phrase it. There should have been, but there wasn't. So, overall, the mood of the first part of the poem, and therefore the piece, is sad and depicts deep remorse.

However, you can of course play the piece the way you want it to. When hearing this piece, most listeners will have the same picture in their head as most pianists. They'd probably be turned off by a different interpretation. It is ironic, though, that a piece that was intended to depict devastating aspects of unrealized love is invariably played as if it was intended to depict giddy romance. probably, the only way to play the piece as intended and "get away" with it with normal listeners is to recite the poem as well.

[kilmartin]

xvimbl writes: "The issue is that there never really was romance in the first place. It's all about missed opportunities, misunderstandings, unrealized love and, on top of it, hurtful behavior. "

Well, you've given me something to think about. On the whole, I have to admit your reading (of the poem at least) is correct.

I guess the question then is how this is expressed in performance of the music. We can agree that the music is an impassioned expression of something: I was contending for a fairly straightforward expression of love and longing; you for an equally passionate expression of bitter regret for an unrealized love.

I wonder to what extent such differences in interpretation actually make past the footlights. It's like when you're standing on the beach, how do you tell if that person out in the water is waving or drowning: both look pretty much the same.

Anyway, yours is the more interesting interpretation, being less straightforward, and I hope it'll find my way into my performance if I ever actually succeed in learning the piece.

Now, as to practice suggestions....

[xvimbi]

Anyway, yours is the more interesting interpretation, being less straightforward, and I hope it'll find my way into my performance if I ever actually succeed in learning the piece.

Now, as to practice suggestions....

OK, I won't bother you anymore with unimportant issues about musicality aspects of a piece. Just let the fingers fly

(just to make sure: that was a joke, no offense - one has to add such disclaimers these days, it seems)

[kilmartin]

xvimbl--

Of course, no offence taken. I couldn't agree more that musicality is almost infinitely more important than mere technique. And I must thank you for your discussion, even though it wasn't exactly what I'd asked for. You've led me to think rather more seriously about the piece; I blush slightly at the arrogance of having said that I was approaching it as an etude, as if it was a mere technical exercise.

[rocketman]

misunderstandings, unrealized love and hurtful behavior are key components in romance and relationship

[xvimbi]

misunderstandings, unrealized love and hurtful behavior are key components in romance and relationship

Yes, but giddy, playful lovemaking with its "cadenzes" is quite a different romantic aspect compared to someone regretfully standing at somebody else's grave, pulling his hair out in anger and despair and finally resigning and walking away in deep remorse, wouldn't you agree?

[leucippus]

I never knew about the poem associated with this piece, yet I have always felt that this piece was melancholy.   But it is melancholy in a romantic way.  In other words, it has always touched me as an expression of what once was or what once could have been.   So evidently Liszt did a pretty good job when he wrote it because I wouldn’t have needed to even know about the poem to interpret it correctly.

Unfortunately I haven't yet learned to play piece so I have no suggestions for practice techniques.