Rhapsodie espagnole (c 1863)

Liszt was one of the first major composers to take a serious interest in the distinctively exotic sound of Spanish folk song. It is true that Scarlatti and Boccherini had introduced Spanish features into their music decades earlier, but they were both long-term Spanish residents who had absorbed the language into their own. Deliberate cultivation of the idiom by outsiders – like Glinka, who visited Spain in 1845 and was thrilled by what he heard there – began in the first half of the 19th century and became big business by the end of it, particularly in France. Liszt’s interest dates from an extensive concert tour of Spain in 1844 and 1845 when he completed his Grosse Konzertfantasie on Spanish melodies. Much the best of his Spanish pieces, however, is the Rhapsodie espagnole, written in Rome in 1863.

Subtitled Folies d’Espagne et Jota aragonesa, the Rhapsodie is based on two very different Spanish themes. La Folia – a traditional tune first printed in 1672 and long familiar throughout Europe – supplies the material for the first third of the rhapsody where, after a dramatic opening cadenza, it is introduced low in the left hand in C sharp minor. After a passacaglia-like series of serious-minded variations, a magical transition effected by way of a modulation to D major leads directly into the second part of the work, which is devoted largely to the Jota aragonesa, a lively dance from North-East Spain – which Glinka also used in his First Spanish Overture. Liszt first presents it in bright and delicate figuration at the top end of the keyboard in D major, from where it is developed to such magnitude that it makes way quite naturally for a grandiose recall of La Folia, now transformed in a triumphant D major.

(Folies d’Espagne et Jota aragonesa)

Always ahead of the trend, Liszt was one of the first major composers to take a serious interest in the distinctively exotic sound of Spanish folk song. It is true that Scarlatti and Boccherini had introduced Spanish features into their music decades earlier, but they were both long-term Spanish residents who had absorbed the language into their own. Deliberate cultivation of the idiom by outsiders – like Glinka, who visited Spain in 1845 and was thrilled by what he heard there – began in the first half of the 19th century and became big business by the end of it, particularly in France. Liszt’s interest dates from an extensive concert tour of Spain in 1844 and 1845 when he completed his Grosse Konzertfantasie on Spanish melodies Much best of his Spanish pieces, howerver, is the Rhapsodie espagnole, written in Rome in 1863.

Subtitled Folies d’Espagne et Jota aragonesa, the Rhapsodie is based on two very different Spanish themes. La Folia – a traditional tune first printed in 1672 and long familiar throughout Europe – supplies the material for the first third of the rhapsody where, after a dramatic opening cadenza, it is introduced low in the left hand in C sharp minor. As the key and the sombre colouring suggest, it is a theme not to be trifled with. In fact, it inspires a passacaglia-like series of serious-minded variations, some of them poetic but most of them proudly assertive or even aggressive in manner. A magical transition effected by way of a modulation to D major leads directly into the second part of the work, which is devoted largely to the Jota aragonesa, a lively dance from North-East Spain – which Glinka also used in his First Spanish Overture. Liszt first presents it in bright and delicate figuration at the top end of the keyboard in D major, from where, after lyrical reflection on a new Spanish melody in the middle section, it is developed to such magnitude that it makes way quite naturally for a grandiose recall of La Folia, now transformed in a triumphant D major.

(Folies d’Espagne et Jota aragonesa)

Always ahead of the trend, Liszt was one of the first major composers to take a serious interest in the distinctively exotic sound of Spanish folk song. It is true that Domenico Scarlatti and Luigi Boccherini had introduced Spanish features into their music decades earlier, but they were both long-term Spanish residents who had absorbed the language into their own. Deliberate cultivation of the idiom by outsiders – like Glinka, who visited Spain in 1845 and was thrilled by what he heard there – began in the first half of the 19th century and became big business by the end of it, particularly in France. Liszt (who had written a Rondeau fantastique on a Spanish song by Manuel Garcia as early as 1836) went on an extensive concert tour of Spain in 1844 and 1845 and while he was there completed his Grosse Konzertfantasie on Spanish melodies – which, as it happens, was at about the same time as Glinka wrote his First Spanish Overture.

The third, last and much the best of Liszt’s Spanish pieces is the Rhapsodie espagnole, which he wrote in Rome in 1863 and dedicated to the Spanish-born Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III of France and good friend to many musicians, not least Liszt himself. Subtitled Folies d’Espagne et Jota aragonesa, it is based on two very different Spanish themes. La Folia – a traditional tune first printed in 1672 and long familiar throughout Europe – supplies the material for the first third of the rhapsody where, after a dramatic opening cadenza, it is introduced low in the left hand in C sharp minor. As the key and the sombre colouring suggest, it is a theme not to be trifled with. In fact, it inspires a passacaglia-like series of serious-minded variations, some of them poetic but most of them proudly assertive or even aggressive in manner. A magical transition effected by way of a modulation to D major leads directly into the second part of the work, which is devoted largely to the Jota aragonesa, a lively dance from North-East Spain – which Glinka also used in his First Spanish Overture. Liszt first presents it in bright and delicate figuration at the top end of the keyboard in D major, from where, after lyrical reflection on a new Spanish melody in the middle section, it is developed to such magnitude that it makes way quite naturally for a grandiose recall of La Folia, now transformed in a triumphant D major.