Composers › Franz Liszt › Programme note
Der Fischerknabe (1845-1859)
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Freudvoll und leidvoll (1844-48)
Im Rhein, im schönen Strome (1840-1856)
Der du vom Himmel bist (1842)
Between 1838 and 1846 Liszt made piano transcriptions of no fewer than fifty-five Schubert songs, including the whole of Schwanengesang and much of Winterreise. Clearly - bearing in mind that he also made arrangements of songs by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann but nothing like as many - Schubert was his favourite composer as far as Lieder were concerned. Indeed, when he heard that some of his own Lieder had been successfully passed off, and encored, as unpublished items by Schubert he was delighted. And yet his first songs to German texts, written throughout the 1840s, are extravagantly distant from the Schubert model. It was only later, when he was thinking about issuing them in a collected edition, that he regretted his self-indulgence. “My earlier songs,” he wrote to a colleague, “are mostly inflatedly sentimental and frequently overladen in the accompaniment.”
In the light of that observation Liszt submitted just about all of his earlier songs to a thorough revision, or several revisions in a few cases, laying a musicological minefield but also perfecting some of the most beautiful of mid-nineteenth century Lieder. Der Fischerknabe, one of three settings of poems from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, is a particularly successful example. Although the piano part is still far more elaborate than anything Schubert might have written, the 1859 revised version cannot be described as a “piano concerto with vocal obbligato” as the 1845 original was. The pianist retains the impressionistic water symbolism in the rippling arpeggios in the left hand and the gently splashing harmonies in the right without putting the voice to any kind of disadvantage. The effect of the sudden stillness that reduces the piano to a single accompanying line before the seductive call “from the deep” is a just reward for the pianist-composer’s modesty.
The mature revision of Freudvoll und Leidvoll to words from Goethe’s Egmont - set also by Beethoven in his incidental music for the play - is a model of restraint, Liszt finding the equivalent to Clärchen’s contradictory emotions in harmonies wavering poignantly between major and minor, a freely expressive vocal line and a piano part that speaks out only once and only briefly. Im Rhein, im schönen Strome is comparable in its second version to that of Der Fischerknabe. The piano loses the long postlude originally awarded to it but retains its rippling figuration which, again to good effect, is momentarily stilled when it comes to the mighty Cologne cathedral. The incense-perfumed harmonies in the closing stanza evaporate as the river flows on.
The one Liszt song to be heard in its original version on this occasion is, interestingly enough, Der du vom Himmel bist, which has been criticised more than most for its extravagance. Certainly, Goethe’s little poem is an intimate inspiration which scarcely calls for histrionics. But it does refer to “Treiben” and “Schmerz” and the younger’s composer’s operatic reaction to those ideas does offset the return of the initial serenity even more effectively than the rather more sober treatment of the same words in the more mature version - which, however, avoids the passionate prolongation of the closing lines.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Der du vom Himmel bist”
Freudvoll und leidvoll (1844-48)
Im Rhein, im schönen Strome (1840-1856)
Der du vom Himmel bist (1842)
Between 1838 and 1846 Liszt made piano transcriptions of no fewer than fifty-five Schubert songs, including the whole of Schwanengesang and much of Winterreise. Clearly - bearing in mind that he also made arrangements of songs by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann but nothing like as many - Schubert was his favourite composer as far as Lieder were concerned. Indeed, when he heard that some of his own Lieder had been successfully passed off, and encored, as unpublished items by Schubert he was delighted. And yet his first songs to German texts, written throughout the 1840s, are extravagantly distant from the Schubert model. It was only later, when he was thinking about issuing them in a collected edition, that he regretted his self-indulgence. “My earlier songs,” he wrote to a colleague, “are mostly inflatedly sentimental and frequently overladen in the accompaniment.”
In the light of that observation Liszt submitted just about all of his earlier songs to a thorough revision, or several revisions in a few cases, laying a musicological minefield but also perfecting some of the most beautiful of mid-nineteenth century Lieder. Der Fischerknabe, one of three settings of poems from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, is a particularly successful example. Although the piano part is still far more elaborate than anything Schubert might have written, the 1859 revised version cannot be described as a “piano concerto with vocal obbligato” as the 1845 original was. The pianist retains the impressionistic water symbolism in the rippling arpeggios in the left hand and the gently splashing harmonies in the right without putting the voice to any kind of disadvantage. The effect of the sudden stillness that reduces the piano to a single accompanying line before the seductive call “from the deep” is a just reward for the pianist-composer’s modesty.
The mature revision of Freudvoll und Leidvoll to words from Goethe’s Egmont - set also by Beethoven in his incidental music for the play - is a model of restraint, Liszt finding the equivalent to Clärchen’s contradictory emotions in harmonies wavering poignantly between major and minor, a freely expressive vocal line and a piano part that speaks out only once and only briefly even then. Im Rhein, im schönen Strome is comparable in its second version to that of Der Fischerknabe. The piano loses the long postlude originally awarded to it but retains its rippling figuration which, again to good effect, is momentarily stilled when it comes to the mighty Cologne cathedral. The incense-perfumed harmonies in the closing stanza evaporate as the river flows on.
The one Liszt song to be heard in its original version on this occasion is, interestingly enough, Der du vom Himmel bist, which has been criticised more than most for its extravagance. Certainly, Goethe’s little poem is an intimate inspiration which scarcely calls for histrionics. But it does refer to “Treiben” and “Schmerz” and the younger’s composer’s operatic reaction to those ideas does offset the return of the initial serenity even more effectively than the sober treatment of the same words in the more mature version - which, however, avoids the passionate prolongation of the closing lines.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Fischerknabe”