Vallee d'Obermann

[mikey6]

Does anyone have background about this piece? i'm learning it at the moment and some insight would be rather helpful.

[iumonito]

If you do a search in the forum you will find some previous discussions.

Here is one where to start:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,10491.0.html

[practicingnow]

Get a copy of the English translation of Senacour's novel, if you're really interested -
You'll be up on about 99% of the pianists that play it, if you do...

Vallee forms the psychological nucleus of the First Years of Pilgrimage...

[arensky]

                          Oh no! Into the Valley of Dobermans!!!!!   

                                                               

                                                                         


                                                            

[arensky]

Seriously this is a difficult piece to interpret, it has a lot of "down time"; I've heard people snooze and slop through this until the octaves at the end, which then seem out of place. I would focus on keeping the rythmic phrasing of the lyrical non-virtuoso parts very definite, not metronomic but alive and rythmic. Make sure that all the lyrical sections relate to one another, and don't sound vague and disconnected. Feel and be the melody, and keep it pulsing, otherwise your audience may fall asleep. This is not an easy piece for an audience, and it does not play itself (once you have the notes down) like a Hungarian Rhapsody or the Mephisto Waltz, it requires you to make it go. practicingnow is right about the literary source, you shuold be familiar with it to really know what Liszt was communicating, and what the inspiration of the piece is.

[mikey6]

thanks.  Agreed, this piece can pose some pacing problems.  It's almost one giant crescendo (save the middle climax) but it doesn't build to a happy conclusion either ie. the last 2 bars.

I did search the net for info but there wasn't that much, didn't think of searching the forum!

[arensky]

From the liner notes by Richard Freed to the Jerome Rose VoxBox of the complete Annees de Pelerinage...

"The title is not merely geographical, but refers to the novel Obermann by Etiene Jeane Senancour, published in 1804, about a despondent man's life-weary search for peace in a remote part of Switzerland. The novel is in the form of a series of letters, the preface to the music includes two long quotations from the book and these lines of Byron:"

Could I embody and unbosm now
That which is most within me,- could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought and all I seek,
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe, - into one word,
And that one word were lightning, I would speak:
But as it is, I live and die unheard,
With a most voiceless thought sheathing it as a sword.

The notes also say that Liszt arranged the piece for violin, cello and piano under the title Tristia.

Hope this helps you........