Words by Dr Michael Kieran Harvey. Photo: Peter Mathew
One almost dead white male enthusing about another long-dead white male might seem unfashionable these days, but I think Franz Liszt has much to say to us still. As a man, an artist, a thinker, a writer, an entertainer of kings, a fundraiser for the poor, an autodidact, a socialist, a parvenu, a sensualist, an idealist, a disillusioned French/German Romantic, a failed but earnest Hungarian, a priest, a lover of women; the catalogue of Liszt’s contradictory traits is endless and endlessly fascinating.
Liszt practically invented the piano recital, offering audiences spectacular showmanship with his superhuman piano-busting transcriptions, touring the latest avant-garde orchestral music all over Europe by bone-jarring coach. He was a one-man orchestra, pushing keyboard technology literally to its breaking point. Then at the age of 38, he sensibly walked away from the chore of concertising to revolutionise composition. In 1854, he wrote the first tone row in history in his Faust Symphony, paving the way for 20th century total serialism over 50 years later.
The music we are exploring in these two concerts at ANAM started with a thought experiment: what would Liszt be doing if he was alive today? The ANAM pianists, along with Paavali, Tim and I, will be charting Liszt’s amazing journey and his lasting influence on composers and musicians. Seminal to his output were the Transcendental Études, perhaps a nod to the mind-centred universe of Kant’s transcendental idealism, which remains an influential philosophy through Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis and films such as The Matrix.
Liszt returned to these etudes many times throughout his life to reinterpret this experimental collection of programmatic pieces. The idealistic imagery they contain include: a Zelenskyy-like Ukrainian hero challenging and surviving autocracy (Mazeppa); the Leopardi-influenced existentialism of post-modern memory (Ricordanza); and a near-deafening paean to the immensity of night (Harmonies du soir). These are just some of the highlights of these revolutionary etudes, which seek to transcend technique and mere virtuosity for the sake of the mind’s artistic imagination and metaphor.
Faust and Mephisto were irresistible magnets for Liszt, and he wrote his most inspired and visceral music under the spell of their philosophical conundrums of theodicy and perdition. After Tim and I play the Faust Symphony ‘soul-hack’ in Liszt’s two-piano version, Paavali will be shredding the 1st Mephisto Waltz . A stripped-back, perhaps disillusioned personality emerges in the late Liszt pieces, where there are glimpses of impressionist and atonal 20th-century styles – perhaps reflecting the horror of the engorging European nationalism feeding off the carrion of Romanticism. These works are truly strange and will transport us into the future under the safe hands of Paavali.
Liszt was a tireless proselytizer for new music and the ‘music of the future’, and he would have been fascinated to hear Reuben play the music of Liszt’s Hungarian heirs, Kurtág and Bartók, agreeing vehemently with the latter’s disdain for competitions as something for horses, not artists. In contrast to the white supremacy and antisemitism of Wagner, Liszt’s diversity and inclusivity of style, as well as his championing of persecuted groups such as the Romany, find common ground in 20th-century magpies Messiaen and Berio, whose characteristic works will be played by Matthew and Ronan. Liszt’s immense 30-minute B minor sonata is distilled into the 10-minute Expressionist angst of Berg’s opus 1, also in a single movement (performed by Leo), employing Liszt’s proto-communist equality of every tone idea from his Faust Symphony in its emerging serial language.
Many composers to the present day (including yours truly!) have written homages to Liszt, and I am thrilled to present Johanna Selleck’s postmodern tribute to Liszt’s great B minor sonata. I need hardly add, after writing this encomium to the great Liszt, how deeply he influenced me as a young boy, where I found consolation in his life and music – how inevitable would be his huge shadow on my own humble musical offerings, my Toccata DNA of last century and my more recent Fitzroy Jazz II, generously and brilliantly presented by Po and Tim in the truly magnanimous spirit of Franz Liszt.
Hear Michael Kieran Harvey perform with ANAM Artistic Director Paavali Jumppanen, ANAM Head of Piano Timothy Young, and the ANAM Pianists, in Liszt's Lance Into The Future: Concert 1 and Concert 2, on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 August at 7 PM.