Liszt...great composer or not

[rlefebvr]

There is a very good article in the new Pianist Magazine on Liszt.

The impression from the article is that Liszt was one of the greatest piano virtuosos that has ever lived, but that is compositions save a few leave a very unfinished and uneven feeling to them.

I have no opinion one way or another, but was wondering what the people in this forum thought about Liszt as a composer.

[JK]

I have no opinion one way or another

You're very wise to sit on the fence on this one!!

I'm saying nothing either!!

[xvimbi]

I am a huge Liszt fan, but I will sit on the fence with you when it comes to decide if he was a great composer or not. I will only offer two (antagonistic) thoughts:

1. What turns me on is that I find it breathtaking how Liszt is able to capture the mood in his transcriptions of symphonies, operas, etc. Not only is he able to replace entire orchestras with the piano, but he does so in a highly virtuosic and effective way (most of the time anyways). Likewise, he is perfectly able to express emotions in his own compositions.

2. What turns me off is that after listening for a while to any of his pieces, I can't help but notice that they all sound alike. Liszt reuses the same basic patterns over and over again - certain arpeggios, runs, little melodic snippets, you name it.

[Allan]

This question concerning Liszt comes up every so often in "scholarly circles."  Liszt must have baffled most of his contemporaries.  He was so greatly gifted few could have fully appreciated his gifts.  

But he was not only a great virtuoso, he was a tremendous composer for the piano, orchestra and organ.  Saint Saens (himself a prodigious talent)  said Liszt's majestic Fantasy and Fugue on the theme "Ad Nos Ad Saluterum Undam" was the greatest piece written for the organ....since Bach!  

His music has power, fire, emotion, structure and freedom.  It touches on so many levels.  And, when you master the difficulties, his music is a blast to play!

Liszt also has the most unique of legacies.  Think of all the pianists he coached and the long lineage of teachers that goes back to Liszt.  So great was the admiration of pianists that it was significant to say "I was taught by a teacher who was taught by Liszt!"  

[donjuan]

I agree with Allen on this one.  I think Liszt was a great composer, because his compositions make so much sense.  It is easy to follow along, the melodies develop logically, and all sonorities are based on a single idea.  I Find it easy to analyze the meaning of the music with Liszt, and I find it tremendously difficult with Bach or Scarlatti.  Let me put it this way:  You dont need a universty education to sit down and enjoy Liszt's compositions.

donjuan  

[xvimbi]

I agree with Allen on this one.  I think Liszt was a great composer, because his compositions make so much sense.  It is easy to follow along, the melodies develop logically, and all sonorities are based on a single idea.  I Find it easy to analyze the meaning of the music with Liszt, and I find it tremendously difficult with Bach or Scarlatti.  Let me put it this way:  You dont need a universty education to sit down and enjoy Liszt's compositions.

donjuan  

Haha, donjuan, you set yourself up for this one!

You say Liszt is a great composer because you "understand" him. You don't understand Bach, so what does it make him? But if we assume for the moment that Bach actually was a great composer, what does it make you?
     
(no offense, I'm just messing with you)

I guess the real question now is: "What makes someone a "great" composer? And does Liszt fit the bill?

[donjuan]

Look xvimbi, define "great composer".  If music isn't easily understood by the least prepared listener, then there was a problem made somewhere (by the composer or the performer).  Liszt is popular because average people like me with average intelligence can enjoy his music, and understand every aspect.  I find Bach confusing and difficult to listen to because I dont feel like sitting around and analyzing music like a textbook.    
donjuan

[xvimbi]

Look xvimbi, define "great composer".  If music isn't easily understood by the least prepared listener, then there was a problem made somewhere (by the composer or the performer).  Liszt is popular because average people like me with average intelligence can enjoy his music, and understand every aspect.  I find Bach confusing and difficult to listen to because I dont feel like sitting around and analyzing music like a textbook.    
donjuan

Hey, as I said, I was just yanking your chain I hear you. I have a hard time listening to most of Bach's music too, but I really admire him as a composer, because he is so complex and forces me to think. When I finally discover something in his music, I feel great about his music and myself.
Yet, I would say Bach is rather a craftsman, someone who knows the tools and can handle them very well, but he lacks emotion (somebody ought to protest now...).
A "great" composer, to me anyway, is someone who can paint a picture in my head (same thing applies to "great" performers). I don't care about how complex or easy the music is, or if I "understand" it or not (what does that mean anyway?), I care primarily about what it invokes in me. This is the reason why I think people like Liszt, Mahler and Mancini are great composers. They might not necessarily be the best craftsmen, and they don't have to.

[liszmaninopin]

I would definitely consider Liszt a great composer, amongst the very greatest, in fact.

First of all, he left a truly vast legacy of music.  One can spend a lifetime exploring the works of Liszt.  While it is true that there were some mediocre works, there were also many masterpieces.

Liszt was one of the earlier composers to make full use of the piano's capabilities-in my mind, moreso than even Chopin and Beethoven.  He ranged the full gamut from the lyricism of Chopin, to the power of Beethoven, and exceeded them both in virtuosity.  Alkan was comparable in this regard, but he left not nearly so vast a legacy as Liszt.

There's also a certain fun and energetic element in much of his music.  I'll be the first to grant that I'm not a musical scholar by any means, but I definitely feel that Liszt deserves a place among the greats.

[Saturn]

Yet, I would say Bach is rather a craftsman, someone who knows the tools and can handle them very well, but he lacks emotion

We must be thinking of different Bach's!

- Saturn

[liszmaninopin]

Bach certainly doesn't lack emotion, but it is less obvious than in many later composers.  His emotion is hidden in complexity.

[xvimbi]

Bach certainly doesn't lack emotion, but it is less obvious than in many later composers.  His emotion is hidden in complexity.

You've just ruined a perfectly wonderful Sunday evening hour!

First let me say that I knew I'd get some heat for my comment on JSB! Well, since I do dish out sometimes when people are not precise in their posts, I must accept the same when I am not precise.

What I really, truly, honestly meant to say was that JSB displays less emotions in his compositions than Liszt.

However, what ruined that hour was your statement! I racked my brains, but couldn't come up with a cogent line of thoughts, so I hope you don't mind my asking what exactly you mean with "Bach's emotion is hidden in complexity"?  (I don't think he is THAT complex, by the way.)

[Allan]

Interesting responses.   It was not until I seriously studied the organ that I began to realize the true greatness of Bach.  In his "Orgelbuchlein,"  the chorale prelude, "Oh Man, Lament Your Great Sin," just drips with emotion.  Every phrase of that little masterpiece is pure gold!!  When he wanted to be, Bach was the most emotional of composers!!  Liszt saw the power and emotion of Bach and wanted to bring it to others (hence his transcriptions of Bach's works for piano).

"It is much easier to criticize Liszt's works than to play them!"

[Mello]

I can't think of describing a five voice fugue without saying complex...

On Liszt I would say he wrote some excellent work but that doesn't mean many of them don't have an unfinished feeling about them.

[donjuan]

On Liszt I would say he wrote some excellent work but that doesn't mean many of them don't have an unfinished feeling about them.

Im curious, which works of Liszt do you feel are "unfinished"?
donjuan

[Allan]

I thought Schubert left his work unfinished.  

[willcowskitz]

Its always funny when people get down to try explain music in words, which music despises. Words, that is.

Anyway, how I see the difference between Bach and Liszt:

A lot of (most of) Bach's music is indeed "crafted", I see it more as a study of music than music for the sake of touching people, which would be the case with Liszt's romantic compositions.  Always when I listen to Bach or someone like Vivaldi (or Telemann), the music sounds so strictly structured and careful.  These people, early classical musicians, were figuring out the rules of music and abused this knowledge of it's laws to gather tones together to form compositions.  Of course its complex, but often I only find it complex, nothing more.  There was another thread little while ago about what music is and where it came from and how its a gift from God and blahblahbleeblableh - But someone (sorry don't remember name) also made a good point:  Music wasn't created by man, but all life, and everything on Earth and in Universe, is due to vibrations.  Particles having positive and negative energies and thus either pulling or pushing each other (EXCUSE my particle physics English vocabulary), everything in the Universe in the end gets down to very basic laws of by which the matter acts.  Even if I hit random notes on my piano but remember some basic rules of musical harmony, it has good chances to sound like music and even raise emotions in a person.  A lot of Bach's music is like this:  its musical study, it tries to find limits to music, it tries to picture what music is.  Like Rachmaninoff said Horowitz brought things out from his (Rachmaninoff's) compositions that he hadn't noticed himself, I'm sure Bach achieved divine sensations from his compositions - some that he hadn't intentionally "created".  Creation is a little like a flowing river that you see and listen to, there are rocks in random places creating whirls and dividing the massive force of water into smaller streams and all these details continuously affect each other.  The creative one, "sipping" from this river, must be able to listen to it, see it, and also feel it.  He must hold on to the fading structures in it, like a smoke that floats in the air - you think you can see formations in it but the next second they're gone and replaced by other structures that you grab on to.  Creation is like the smoke in the air, dreaming, or that river.  But this river or smoke, even less dreams, are nothing without the perceiver, the one that processes the whole thing in his head.  Even composer is an interpreter, just like musician, there are just less nodes in between the river of "creation" and the perceiver/experiencer.  Humans have a logical mind (to greater or lesser degree), so we see rules everywhere.  We have discovered and keep discovering "secrets" of mathematics and science, rules of our own behaviour in larger or smaller scales (historical determinism <--> psychology of individual).  We are the ones that pick up apples and oranges and start calling them fruits and giving them their own names by their individual characteristics, we categorize and draw lines.  Apples and oranges are ingredients.  We can make apple pie, or orange juice, or whatever.  Sounds are ingredients.  This distinguished, different frequencies of sound are ingredients.  There's a pool with a lot of separate sounds (or frequencies of sound) floating in and something happens in the artist's mind - The river starts flowing and the ingredients start vibrating, they become active, they push certain buttons in the artist's consciousness and the buttons push them back, some new strange mixture of the commonly known ingredients is about to be brought to life.  This mixture, or now a creation, will be like a child:  It must be brought to life by external forces (adults making love, building a little home for a child's soul to set in to), here the physical active mind.  Now if anyone's heard the saying that an artist lose's his right to his creation the moment it is created, cause then it becomes the 'property' of mankind and it's culture (or something, ugh)? - This makes sense here.  Just cause you as a mother or father "granted" life to your child, it doesn't mean you own the child and cook him/her for dinner if you wish.  Though these two 'childs' are obviously not as directly comparable as I may have presented here, "the analogy should be clear".  This child, the creation, is not passive - it is to shape the world.  This doesn't exclude the artist himself, as I hinted in the case of Bach and Rachmaninoff.  Sometimes the river pulls you in and when you have been through hitting all those rocks and spinning in those vortices, you can't see the source of it - the pool - anymore.

Bach sat at the shore of the pool sipping and tasting from it, seeing all the potent ingredients with his intellectual giftedness that made handling these abstract forms relatively burdenless for him. He saw his mirror image in the still water of this pool, he saw glimpses of the perfect - the God - the realm where every piece fell in it's place and made absolute sense. He wanted to construct the God.

Liszt saw the river and all the potential emotional activity in it, he saw his mirror image in the river as he was a feeling type and his being was in this sense more "human" than Bach's - His mind matched with the flowing river and it's endless activity in form of those streams that would hold the vibrations in them and in his feeling mind.  He surrendered to those streams (his compositions do sometimes have naive elements in them). He wanted to construct the human.


Ok hahah I'm not trying to lecture or brainwash anyone, just put into words what I had in mind regarding the subject.

[donjuan]

Nice work! very understandable and logical.  But I cant help thinking you got some of it out of a University Philosophy textbook.

[willcowskitz]

Hah. Don't make me feel too good about myself.  Its a sin!! SIN!!!

[Mello]

Although I would like to reply in your terms, Will, I'm unable to, so I'll just try my best...

I would say that Bach lived in a time and place more alien to Liszt's than Liszt's to ours, and Bach's music reflected this.  The emotions he expresses are the ones of the German people during his age, and they are both more crude and more complex than any we or Liszt could recognize.  Liszt, however, did recognize Bach's genius in other forms than emotion, and played his works for their other qualities.

I play Bach not only to experience it's beautifully crafted nature, but also to better understand the age he lived in.

[rhapsody]

I'd surely say that bach is a genius, pure talent! although i must confess that not all his WTC are my favs.

But I remember when i read a book on chopin saying that chopin didn't really like liszt because of his musics are vulgar. (they also don't have some special relationship although it is liszt who introduce george sand to chopin)
I don't really understand that. What did chopin mean by vulgar? is it his nature of virtuoso playing technique (banging the piano, striking countless of note on keyboard) or his composition.
Chopin sometimes can sound like liszt (revolutionary, or ballade1) and vice versa (liebestraume, consolation3)

to me liszt is one of the greatest composer, his star is among beethoven's, and chopin's

[willcowskitz]

Mello:

I think Bach's music is less expressive from a human's point of view, because what he expressed was more of the divine, which the complexity perfectly serves.  Liszt on there other hand touched people more directly, digged the roots of what it is special about our species - the emotions and empathy - and helped people discover these sensations with his relatively straight-forwardish melodies, in contrast to Bach's colder handling.  Of course it is subjective, as to what each person experiences as emotionally energized, but I think Liszt went straight into the heart, when Bach's emotions are more built on the intellectual understanding of the world (I'd like to say universe but I feel I'm repeating myself which would mean my words are ineffective).  Like there are orbits that planets 'follow' around their central stars, there are different perspectives to music.  How I see it, Bach was on a higher orbit, he stood and held the higher pillars of the universe whereas Liszt was decorating the downstairs, closer to Sun - the source of warmth and life, hence touching us humans in our hearts (heart, heat, human, feelings, emotions (I'm only associating and creating lingual images)).  This doesn't mean Liszt didn't in his later years venture to the outer orbits (as his pre-modernistic works would imply), or that Bach didn't understand or express human emotions.  But yes, of course, Bach also expressed and reflected the cultural setting of his era, which was totally different from that of Liszt's.


rhapsody:

The "vulgarity" that Chopin saw in Liszt was probably his showmanship.  Liszt Ferenc was the first "rock star" of classical music, on piano.  He had the charisma and stage glow, he made people faint in the audience, he raised  H Y S T E R I A .  According to what I've read, of course.

[liszmaninopin]

Xvimbi,

I'm sorry for causing you such distress!

If your question has not been answered already, I will add a bit more of what I mean by Bach's emotion hidden in complexity.

The emotion is in that music.  He often has several melodies going at once; which requires more thought.  This concentration makes it more difficult to get "carried away" with it.  Also, Bach's emotion is often, not always of course, but often rather light or content in nature-at least to me.  Not so, with say, Rachmaninoff, where it is often tragic; or Liszt, where it is passionate.  Consequently, Bach's emotion again is harder to pick out of all the multiple voices and harmonies, but it is there.  I hope I've explained this adequately.  It's really very difficult to put my exact thoughts into words, you know.

[Mello]

I think Bach's music reflected the people of the day in that it was more cold and unemotional, as they were.  The German peoples of his day were far less liberal than the French of the romantic era.

Liszt was often noted for being a performer, and giving the public what they wanted.  Although Liszt played many stormy, romantic, and demonstrative pieces in public, it is said that in private, for himself or his friends, he played classical and baroque music.

[Allan]

It is interesting to me that we are talking about Bach and Liszt---my two favorite composers (in that order).

As a musician once said,  Bach's mind was universal, his heart overwhelming and the Spirit of God (which permeates his music) is transcendent.  The tools of his expressive music included rhythm, shape (counterpoint), fugue, canon, inversion, expansion, contraction, harmony and text, which leads to the heart and spirit.  He had the whole package.  No one else has ever had all of those things like Bach.  In my view, Liszt's great appreciation for Bach went beyond mere admiration for the "Old Master."  (There were, after all, other old masters even by Liszt's time.)   I believe Liszt was truly touched by the great emotion and power of Bach's music.   Bach, the musician of the 18th century touched and influenced the star of the 19th century!  

When I play Bach's "Arioso,"  "Before Thy Throne I Come, "Sheep May Saftley Graze,"  "Suite in D",  or "Toccata in D minor," to give just a few examples,  it amazes me to see the emotional response of people to this great music.  I think an interesting point was earlier made about the type of emotion (or insipiration) that Bach's music elicits and is derived from.  It represents, to me anyway, the highest expression of emotion and is at the highest plane of inspiration.   Liszt was truly drawn to Bach's desire to write music for God's glory and for man's good.

[f0bul0us]

Liszt didn't commit everything he wrote to paper, possibly because many of his works were "spur of the moment" improvisations that were later built on.

[Antnee]

Liszt was most definitely a great composer. Among the greatest. The only thing that prevents Liszt from being commonly accepted as a master is the fact that he is more known as a virtuoso than a composer. For example, many piano students love to get their hands on Liszt pieces for one reason and one reason only. Technical challenge. They want to test their skills as technitions (sp?) but they don't stop to think about what music comes out of a Liszt piece. Mostly because of the widespread fact that Liszt was the greatest virtuoso of all time. Not the greatest composer.

This is not true. In many Liszt pieces, virtuosity is nearly or completely absent, but there is immense beauty in the notes. For example his Au Bord D'une Source  or his consolations are a couple of examples. They are beautiful pieces that display a lot of emotion. But his talent for composition is just as easily seen in harder pieces. His Hungarian rhapsodies are terrific examples of his dazzling ways to use the piano and the way he musically invents his pieces. And then there are his transcriptions. His trancriptions are unmatched and never again will there be any like them. Here you can see Liszt's genius because of his amazing ear for color, sonority and power. He invented new ways to use the piano. It was no longer a solo instrument, but an orchestra. Strings, flutes and trumpets came from one instrument. Of all Composers, Liszt should be credited as one of the most talented. The reason is plain and simple. He didn't let virtuosity go to his head. There were a few pianists who could match Liszt in the technical sense (but without his flair) But do you see any of their music in the repertory? (Alkan is starting to become more popular). Not really. Liszt contributed much in the way of music. He was a showoff (Grand Galop Chromatique), He was cheery and colorful (Les Années de Pélegrinage), melancholy (Funérailles),  told great stories (mazeppa) and most of all... he was a Visionary (B minor Sonata). What more could you want from a composer to be considered one of the greats??
- How often is Liszt played in concert?
--Alot
- Why?
--Because he was a great composer whose music never tires and offers many a curious idea and is ever so intriguing, just as Liszt himself was.

If a composer's musicmanages to reach so many ears in an enjoyable way, no matter what way it may be, then he was great.

-Tony-

[goansongo]

I think Liszt is a great composer because his music is what I really like.  

[willcowskitz]

Btw, about BWV565:  
https://classicalplus.gmn.com/classical/work.asp?id=414&cmp=Bach%2C+Johann+Sebastian&notes=true

[donjuan]

Well Said, Tony.
;)donjuan

[Mello]

From what I've read it does seem that the music of Liszt we have today is probably pretty different than what he played.

Like Gottschalk, he was primarily a performer, and would not put down his pieces on paper exactly as he played them, and in fact, would probably change the pieces around during performances.

Or at least that's my understanding.

[hunkyhong]

i think its so funny and ridiculous that you guys are comparing or even talking about liszt and bach in the same sentence. But in all honesty, liszt as a composer...he was known for writing up a storm. most of his pieces have chunks of sections which call for loud and firm presence. (thats in a polite manner of speaking). as for the musicality, its all right...i mean its not as beautiful as schubert's lyrical lines, nor as rich as brahms harmonies, but liszt is liszt. He is known for technique and virtuostic compositions. Remember, he was the first to bring the piano to the forefront of the concert hall, so theres obviously some kind of ego there. But he made it a big deal that the piano should be present and be the main attraction. And he succeeded.

[webern78]

All i can say is that Liszt's emotional palette leaves me rather cold. Lot's of big sentimental strokes with little substance behind them. He's good, but not really great, and he's but a speck of dust compared to the genius of Bach.

One thing about Liszt though is that his contributions to the advancement of harmony are rarely acknowledged (and credited to Wagner instead), which is an injustice. Give credit where credit it's due, whether in good or bad.

[arensky]

Wow this thread is over four years old, and buried until today! 


Liszt's output is uneven but very important. He was a great influence on some composers who came after him, most notably Wagner and Tchaikovsky and of course Bartok. Liszt's greatest works (such as the Sonata, Faust Symphony and many of his piano works and songs) certainly insure him a place in music history as long as there is classical music and any sort of piano music. His advocates and detractors alike both have valid viewpoints about his music and it's quality and significance.

I've never been quite sure if he is the worst of the first rate composers, or the best of the second rate ones... 

[webern78]

I've never been quite sure if he is the worst of the first rate composers, or the best of the second rate ones... 

I think he's original enough to belong to the first rate category, though very low on the list. Second rate composers usually make no impact whatsoever, even the good ones.