Revolution And Religion In The Music Of Liszt

This study of a hitherto neglected aspect of Liszt and his music aims to restore a balanced view of both man and artist. In contrast to the familiar portrayal of the virtuoso pianist, Liszt is considered here as a serious man of ideas: in tracing the composer's relationships and attitudes to the twin themes of revolution and religion, Paul Merrick finds much of Liszt's music, both secular and sacred, to be inspired by the same deeply felt religious conviction that also governed his private life from an early age. The first part of the book is primarily biographical and considers Liszt's reactions to the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, his relationship with the Abbe Lamennais, the Comtesse d' Agoult, Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner, and contains the first convincing explanation for the sudden cancellation of Liszt's marriage to Princess Wittgenstein. The remaining sections consider the church music and the programmatic music that is related to this.

The first volume of proceedings from the International Liszt Conference.

Franz Liszt: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a composer and performer. The second edition includes research published since the publication of the first edition and provide electronic resources. Franz Liszt was born on 22 October 1811 at Raiding, today located in Austria’s Burgenland. He received his first piano lessons from his father, Adam Liszt, an employee of the celebrated Eszterházy family. Young Franz was quickly acclaimed a prodigy, and in 1820 a group of Hungarian magnates offered to underwrite his musical education. Shortly thereafter the Liszts moved to Vienna, where Franz studied piano and composition with Carl Czerny and Anton Salieri. Performances there earned Liszt local fame; even Beethoven expressed interest in him.

Franz Liszt is most well-known for his compositions for piano and orchestra, but his influence is also strong in chamber music, choral music, and orchestral transcriptions. This new collection of essays presents a scholarly overview of all of the composer's work, providing the most comprehensive and current treatment of both his oeuvre and the immense amount of secondary literature written about it. Highly regarded critics and scholars write for both a general and academic audience, covering all of Liszt's major compositions as well as the neglected gems found among his choral and chamber works. Following an outline of the subject's life, The Liszt Companion goes on to detail Liszt's critical reception in the German press, his writings and letters, his piano and orchestral works, his neglected secular choral works, and his major organ compositions. Also explored here are his little-known chamber pieces and his songs. An exhaustive bibliography and index of works conclude the volume. This work will both elucidate aspects of Liszt's most famous work and revive interest in those pieces that deserve and require greater attention.

Franz Liszt is well known for his early years as 'super-star' pianist who excited audiences throughout Europe, but his later life is also of great interest. In his final 25 years he sought to achieve his life's aims of promoting new forms of music and giving stronger witness to his Christian faith, while continuing to support his stalwart life partner Princess Carolyne. However, he was to face unexpected problems in the continued negative reception of his music and recrimination in his closest relationship. Drawing on detailed analysis of Liszt's correspondence from his fiftieth year onwards, Peter Coleman approaches his later life as a case study of an older person grappling with a succession of often disturbing life experiences. These included the deaths of two of his children, political upheaval and war within Europe, and a growing realisation of his own past failings. Liszt suffered frequent bouts of depression but never ceased composing music nor steadfastly heeding Christ's command to bear one's cross. This sensitive treatment of an extraordinary individual will appeal to the scholar and general reader alike.

Nineteenth-Century Choral Music is a collection of essays studying choral music making as a cultural phenomenon, one that had an impact on multiple parts of society. Rather than merely offering a collection of raw descriptions of works, the contributors focus their discussions on what these pieces reveal about their composers as craftsmen/women. Major works as well as other equally rich parts of the repertoire are discussed, including smaller choral works and contributions by composers such as Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, Charles Stanford,

In Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor, historian Nicholas Tarling surveys the landscape of choral works, some standard masterpieces that are commonly performed by choruses around the world, others deserving a second, closer look. As noted in the foreword by Uwe Grodd , music director of the Auckland Choral Society, this work “is a collection of essays about a number of outstanding works, including Beethoven’s Miss Solemnis and Britten’s War Requiem, but he also invites attention to lesser masterpieces. If the choral movement, which includes both singers and listeners, is to survive, new works must be created and repertory expanded. The book is an easy and captivating read even if you are not a chorister.” Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor features short essays on over 28 works, from major masterpieces such as Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion to off-the-beaten path choral works such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha and Frederick Delius’ A Mass of Life. Throughout, Tarling offers assessments that sparkle with unique insights and at the same time ground listener’s in the historical contexts of the work’s production and performance. Each work is transformed in Tarling’s able hands from musical work into a window into the mind and milieu of the composer. Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor mixes choral mainstays with works that demand revisiting. Choral singers and their audiences, as well as choral societies and their directions and promoters, will find ample food for thoughts in these meditations on the choral tradition.

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism provides a snapshot of the diverse ways in which medievalism--the retrospective immersion in the images, sounds, narratives, and ideologies of the European Middle Ages--powerfully transforms many of the varied musical traditions of the last two centuries. Thirty-three chapters from an international group of scholars explore topics ranging from the representation of the Middle Ages in nineteenth-century opera to medievalism in contemporary video game music, thereby connecting disparate musical forms across typical musicological boundaries of chronology and geography. While some chapters focus on key medievalist works such as Orff's Carmina Burana or Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, others explore medievalism in the oeuvre of a single composer (e.g. Richard Wagner or Arvo P�rt) or musical group (e.g. Led Zeppelin). The topics of the individual chapters include both well-known works such as John Boorman's film Excalibur and also less familiar examples such as Eduard Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys. The authors of the chapters approach their material from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives, including historical musicology, popular music studies, music theory, and film studies, examining the intersections of medievalism with nationalism, romanticism, ideology, nature, feminism, or spiritualism. Taken together, the contents of the Handbook develop new critical insights that venture outside traditional methodological constraints and provide a capstone and point of departure for future scholarship on music and medievalism.