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| post | Step Into The Void: Liszt's Piano Sonata [Liszt] |
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2021-09-11 00:26:00 +0200 |
I am a symphonic person. There's no denying it - I'm gobsmacked by sweeping orchestral manuevers. Romantic symphonies, such as Brahms' 4th and Tchaikovski's 4th (both likely mentioned here already) are firmly where my tastes lay. To be a good listener, however (and to actually realise what is your 'home ground'), I've heard the essentials of other types of classical as well. I still feel at home with chamber music, and a passionate string quartet never fails to sucker-punch me in the feels. And of course, I've heard some essentials of the solo piano - Chopin's Nocturnes and Beethoven's sonatas. Franz Liszt, however, is a composer I've had trouble connecting with - and this enigmatic piano sonata is deep, deep piano territory. It is also one of my absolute favourites.
Why?
Liszt's piano sonata is completely unlike anything I've ever heard before, certainly not in any string quartet. It is elaborate, mysterious, and - in my eyes - beyond sublime.
The sonata has... moods. Naturally, music has moods, yes. However, being a keen Romantic (in music and not much else), I usually have an inkling of the composer's mood or experience when listening to a piece. This is all ground I've covered in the Classical Thunder post, earlier in the ramblings. As mentioned in that post, the only two composers I can think of that totally obstruct this to me are Mozart and Liszt. With Franz, however, the obscurity runs even deeper - I not only fail to understand the mood when writing the piece, but the mood stated in it as well.
Mood.
Liszt's sonata is exquisitley crafted, and can be disassembled in a myraid of ways - below is my humble, uninformed, likely bluntly wrong and stupid take.
Two moods run through the sonata.
The Oomph
The first - uttered with a single, suspended note, repeated and followed by a short phrase of suspended chords - feels tense, and dark. It's not quite insidious, but it makes you hold your breath knowing something greater is about to be expressed. Sure enough, a few loud chords are uttered, and the mood quickly picks up pace, becoming faster and faster, tension rising and rising, almost disintegrating as it goes. Just when it feels like it all falls apart, the second mood bursts in.
The Wow
The tone shifts suddenly, and immediatly slaps from being menacing to... overjoyed? Stated relatively slowly, this rapture grows more intense, with chords hammered on the piano overpowering the notes of the melody, until reaching an overbearing, strained and emphasised joy.
This crescendo descendes to a simple, pleasant, heart-tugging melody - with sweet notes floating over the piano, as if the great tension and its' release are finished and we are basking in the aftermath. The distance between this phrase and the suspended, thundering notes of the opening are unbelieveable.
Also, everything mention thus far happens within the first five minutes. Just so you know.
The Cycle
Amazingly, these two are the only moods expressed throughout the piece. This is a good 30 minutes, and Franz has drawn all his cards within five minutes. What now?
Well, the piece goes on to dance between these moods - the tense buildup to the disintegration, the rapture, the relief, and back into the tension - each revision getting more and more extreme with whatever it's expressing. The buildup grows faster, louder, stronger, notes blurring into each other - and still distinguishable as the very first ones the sonata opens with. Conversly, the rapture grows the other way - slower, and even more refined and distinguished from its earlier revisions - with the height right about the middle of the piece. The aftermath is almost a whisper, as the listener unwinds from the second cycle.
Finally, the final third or so of the piece is approximately the previous two-thirds, repeated and dramaticized. The fast bits are breakneck speed, the rapture is fired swiftly after, and this whole cycle repeats a final time, greatly compressed and exagerated. Some alteration and variations are evident late in this final cycle in both moods, and finally - in the sonata's dusk - we fall back to the very opening. A single, suspended note, repeated and followed by a short phrase of suspened chords.
This time, instead of picking up speed again, they dissolve - almost peacefully - and the sonata ends.
Aftermath
This sonata is amazingly succint. Moods and phrases feel familiar as they swing around, intertwine and interact, but they're never quite clear. With both, I have a vague idea of what they're expressing, but Liszt never quite lets you pin down where they come from, what they mean or where they lead up to. You're confined to this small subset of emotion - and it is wrung to its core.
Liszt's sonata is sublime, and it is fascinating to see how different pianists - one no less talented than the other - interpret this mysterious, emotional piece.
I recommened Christian Zimmerman's recording (considered the 'Gold Standard'), and Jorge Bolets' recording - both are breathtaking and sound incredibly different.