Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forgotten masterpiece,
This review is from: Franz Liszt (Man & His Music) (Paperback)
Franz Liszt:
The Man and His Music Edited by Alan Walker Barrie & Jenkins, Hardback, 1970. 8vo. xvi, 471 pp. First Edition. Edited by Alan Walker. Preface by the editor, 6 May 1968 [xiii-xiv]. Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Editorial Note Notes on Contributors Preface Sacheverell Sitwell: Liszt: A Character Study Arthur Hedley: Liszt the Pianist and Teacher Alan Walker: Liszt's Musical Background Louis Kentner: Solo Piano Music (1827-61) John Ogdon: Solo Piano Music (1861-86) David Wilde: Transcriptions for Piano Louis Kentner: The Interpretation of Liszt's Piano Music Christopher Headington: The Songs Robert Collet: Works for Piano and Orchestra Humphrey Searle: The Orchestral Works Robert Collet: Choral and Organ Music Alan Walker: Liszt and the Twentieth Century A Biographical Summary Register of Persons Bibliography Complete Catalogue of Liszt's Works Index to Music Examples General Index What a great surprise this book has turned out to be! Considering all that has happened in Lisztian scholarship during the last four decades or so, the volume is surprisingly little dated. Indeed, a great deal has happened; one may even call it a complete re-evaluation of Liszt's position among the great composers of the nineteenth century. Two events stand out: Alan Walker's magisterial biography Franz Liszt (3 vols., 1983-1996), a product of brilliant writing style, powerful mind and quarter of a century scrupulous research that has managed in mere 1500 pages or so demolish tons of legendary myths about Liszt's personality; and the second fabulous achievement in the field is, of course, Leslie Howard's monumental recording of Liszt's complete piano music, a gargantuan mission which took more than two decades of his life and nearly 100 well-filed compact discs, to say nothing of the fact that he himself has done all the research as well. So today we have a much better idea of Liszt's complex personality and his vast output; Leslie's recordings include a number of world premieres prepared from unpublished manuscripts, whereas in recent years such totally forgotten in the past parts of Liszt's oeuvre such as his songs or choral works have been recorded many times and assiduously studied; it is worth noting that Liszt symphonic works, too, have enjoyed fecundity of recordings unknown before. Mr Walker has been accused of partisanship and Mr Howard's artistry has been criticised, but no one has ever doubted the scholarship of either. Considering all that, Franz Liszt: The Man and His Music still makes surprisingly rewarding read. The major reason for my acquiring this book was the fact that it is edited by Alan Walker. As it turned out, the man is just as brilliant an editor as he is an author. Apart from two fine chapters that will be discussed below, Alan Walker has written a short, but extremely meaningful, preface and has supplied the writings of his contributors with abundant footnotes indicating cross-references and adding important additional nuances. The final success of the book is no doubt due also to Mr Walker's choice of contributors: all of them are experienced Liszt scholars, and almost each one of them is also musician who has carried ''Liszt's music in his ears and fingers, and who has lived on terms of intimacy with it for a long time - in some cases, for a lifetime.'' It is only fair to mention right away the major, and expected, caveat of the book which is made explicit by Alan Walker in the last paragraph of his preface which I have omitted above. The editor makes no bones that the volume is primarily addressed to professional musicians. So one must expect tons of musical examples - and the layman must make allowances for ''sixths'', ''thirds'', ''augmented triads'', tons of tonalities and numerous other cryptic terms. The professional musician, or least the amateur one who is able to read music fluently, will certainly profit from the book infinitely more than the musically illiterate layman. That said, being a prominent member of the latter group, I do guarantee that none of the chapters here is entirely without interest for those unfortunate enough to have no idea what C major is and how on earth it differs from C minor. Indeed, most of the chapters are rich in fascinating insights that may be understood by all who can read. The only other condition that a reader should fulfill is that he or she really should have a lively interest in the mind and music of Franz Liszt. Finally, I want to make it clear that the severe technical analyses are not a reason to degrade the book. For one thing, they are there by design; for another, one should be ready for them after reading the preface. Now that I mentioned it, I might as well say few words about the drawbacks of the book. There are two major ones and they are both minor ones indeed: 1) though the chapters have dated surprisingly little, all of them ARE dated to some extent; and 2) the treatment of Liszt's music is sometimes rather perfunctory. Now, both of these drawbacks are to be expected considering, as already remarked, 1) the year of the first edition and 2) the volume, to say nothing of the variety, of Liszt's output, yet none of them is negligible. All the same, the book makes a thoroughly compelling read for anybody for whom Franz Liszt is not just another composer. Apart from the editor's contributions, those by Messrs Sitwell, Hedley, Kentner and Searle - altogether seven chapters - are all minor masterpieces. The rest four chapters are considerably less accomplished but do contain a number of fascinating points, even for the layman. In addition to his perceptive preface, Alan Walker has contributed two full-scale chapters, a number of very useful footnotes with cross references or alternative hypothesis, and a wonderful Register of Persons in which he has explored the relationships between Liszt and a number of his contemporaries, and even an original catalogue of Liszt's stupendous legacy (dated, certainly, but still useful for almost all of the major works, including sets of pieces; cross references with the catalogues of Searle and Raabe are given). The first thing about Mr Walker's contributions that must be said is that they sometimes are surprisingly badly dated. It is tremendously amusing to see Mr Walker, whose biography of Liszt is famous for his meticulous research, obviously taking seriously some of the most preposterous gossip ever attached to Liszt, such as the notorious accident with Lola Montez locked up in a hotel room and his having three (?!) illegitimate children by the Princess. Of course we must never forget that this was first published in 1970, more than a decade before the first volume of Mr Walker's biography (1983); at the time he hadn't even started his research. So the facts in these chapters, as anywhere in the volume indeed, should be read with great caution. Indeed, the book must be read only after one is intimately familiar with all three volumes of Mr Walker's magisterial biography; in the first of these he completely demolished both episodes. That said, both of Alan Walker's chapters are pure gems. 'Liszt's Musical Background' explores in great detail the far-from-simple and multifarious relationships between and four composers whom he knew personally and was greatly influenced by: Paganini, Chopin, Berlioz and, above all, Wagner. The only gentle criticism that can be leveled against Mr Walker here is that he tends to overestimate the impact of Paganini. To be sure the Italian incarnation of the Devil (as he was famously referred to) did have an enormous influence over the young Hungarian who at the time in deep depression after a disastrous infatuation with the a beautiful creature from the wrong class; and it was Paganini, too, who inspired Liszt to start practicing like crazy until he became ''Paganini of the piano'' and just about the greatest virtuoso of that instrument the world had ever seen. But to claim that this was the most important event in Liszt's life is a bit too much. 'Liszt and the Twentieth Century' is another powerful chapter, mostly concerned with the amazing transformation in Liszt's old age (which is without precedent in the music history, Beethoven included, as pointed out by John Ogdon; see below). Mr Walker's makes a very strong case that Liszt was indeed he father of modern music as he had anticipated impressionism and atonality long before Debussy and Schoenberg put them to regular use. He discusses in detail many of Liszt's remarkable late pieces, most notably 'Les jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este' from the third 'year' of 'Annees de Pelerinage', one of the most historically significant among Liszt's original compositions. To finish with Mr Walker's contributions, certainly the most valuable ones, a word about his endlessly charming footnotes. These often are way more than helpful cross references, giving lots of additional information that makes the picture much more coherent and compelling. As every great editor, Mr Walker has obviously read carefully the chapters of all contributors and he sometimes effectively questions some of their assumptions. Sacheverell Sitwell is the only one among the contributors who is neither a musician nor a musical critic. He is a writer and a poet. However, among his writings there is a biography of Liszt which, judging by this chapter, is well worth reading. Of course Mr Sitwell's facts should be taken with a solid pinch of salt, firstly because his book... Read more ›
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
