Collaboration and Content in the Symphonie fantastique Transcription
Author(s): JONATHAN KREGOR
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 195-236
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2007.24.2.195 .
Accessed: 23/01/2012 05:50
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Journal of Musicology.
http://www.jstor.org
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 195
Collaboration and Content
in the Symphonie fantastique
Transcription
J O N AT H A N K R E G O R
I
t was Charles Hallé who best captured the most
famous performance of Franz Liszt’s solo piano transcription of Hector
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique:
To return to my own experiences in 1836, I have to relate that a few
days after having made the acquaintance of Chopin, I heard Liszt for
the first time at one of his concerts, and went home with a feeling of
The present article has been enriched considerably through
valuable advice and close readings by Detlef Altenburg, Mark
Evan Bonds, Jon Finson, Dana Gooley, Thomas Forrest Kelly,
Evelyn Liepsch, Rena Charnin Mueller, and Karen Painter. I am
especially grateful to Sean Gallagher and Alexander Rehding for
their indefatigable support. Consultation of primary-source materials at the Goethe- und Schillerarchiv was made possible by a
grant from the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik.
Abbreviations
C.G.I = Hector Berlioz, Correspondance Générale I, ed. Pierre Citron
(Paris: Flammarion, 1972).
C.G.II = Hector Berlioz, Correspondance Générale II, ed. Frédéric
Robert (Paris: Flammarion, 1975).
C.G.IV = Hector Berlioz, Correspondance Générale IV, ed. Pierre
Citron, Yves Gérard, and Hugh J. Macdonald (Paris: Flammarion, 1983).
Liszt/d’Agoult = Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult, Correspondance,
ed. Serge Gut and Jacqueline Bellas (Paris: Fayard, 2001).
NZfM = Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
D-WRgs = Weimar, Goethe- und Schillerarchiv
US-Wc = Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, Music Division
The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 195–236, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347.
© 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests
for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s
Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/
jm.2007.24.2.195.
195
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 196
the journal of musicology
thorough dejection. Such marvels of executive skill and power I could
never have imagined. . . . The power he drew from his instrument was
such as I have never heard since, but never harsh, never suggesting
“thumping.” His daring was as extraordinary as his talent. At an orchestral concert given by him and conducted by Berlioz, the “Marche
au supplice,” from the latter’s “Symphonie fantastique,” that most gorgeously instrumented piece, was performed, at the conclusion of
which Liszt sat down and played his own arrangement, for the piano
alone, of the same movement, with an effect even surpassing that of
the full orchestra, and creating an indescribable furore. The feat had
been duly announced in the programme beforehand, a proof of his
indomitable courage.1
196
In one epochal event, Hallé succinctly tied together several strands of
Liszt’s virtuosity: his bold, commanding artistic profile (much stronger,
apparently, than that of Chopin), a nuanced technique that not only
transcends the clichés of the Parisian virtuosos but allows him literally
to conjure unheard-of sounds from his instrument, and an ability to
overwhelm his audience with a power greater than any orchestra could
ever realize. In short, no other pianist—hence Hallé’s dejection—could
have achieved such a performance.
It is of little consequence that several details of this account are inaccurate. Berlioz was not the conductor when Liszt played the second
and fourth movements at the transcription’s premiere in 1834 (it was
actually François-Antoine Habeneck), nor did he perform the fourth
movement after an orchestral performance when Berlioz conducted in
1844. In fact, Liszt’s performance of portions of the work in 1836 did
not include the orchestral version at all.2 Spotty memory aside, however, Hallé’s point is clear: That day Liszt and his “orchestra” of ten
fingers mobilized sounds of such strength—indeed violence—that
Berlioz’s orchestra was utterly subdued, if not annihilated altogether.
Hallé’s report continues to remain popular because it evocatively recreates Liszt’s first duel, with the courageous, heroic victor flaunting what
Dana Gooley has called Liszt’s “military aura,” a facet of the performer
that would become integral to his triumphs on stage over the next
15 years.3 But at an even more substantive level, Hallé’s story success1 C. E. and Marie Hallé, eds., Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hallé (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1896), 37–38.
2 Adrian Williams seems to have been the first to discuss, perhaps even note, this
discrepancy. He suggests the 4 May 1844 concert as the only plausible one in which Hallé
heard Liszt perform part of the Symphonie fantastique under similar circumstances. If this
is true, Hallé listened to an execution of the second movement, not the fourth. See
Adrian Williams, Portrait of Liszt: By Himself and His Contemporaries (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990), 84–85.
3 Dana Gooley explores the ubiquitous military imagery of Liszt’s virtuosity in his
The Virtuoso Liszt (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004), chap. 2.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 197
kregor
fully unites two seemingly independent strands of the pianist’s persona:
the fiery, dueling Liszt and the sympathetic arranger Liszt, the artist responsible for transferring Beethoven’s symphonies, Schubert’s lieder,
and selections from Wagner’s operas to the keyboard with ostensibly
little or no loss of effect. Indeed, Hallé’s account seems an outright
affront to the artist and composer Berlioz, suggesting that Liszt’s
arrangement of Berlioz’s march was even more powerful, more terrifying (that is, more suited to the program of the “Marche au supplice”),
and better “orchestrated” than the original, a position with which many
would take issue today.
The enduring popularity of Hallé’s recollection illustrates how
Liszt’s biographers, in a tradition that extends back to Robert Schumann’s 1835 review of the work in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, have
continued to afford the arrangement of the Symphonie fantastique a primacy of place among his more than 300 similar productions for solo piano.4 Alan Walker wonders of Berlioz’s work in his 1983 Liszt biography: “Is there more idiosyncratic music anywhere?” His answer comes
in the form of a musical example, measures 97–104 of the “Marche au
supplice,” which not only “would have rolled across the halls like peals
of thunder” but “which, at times, approaches the accuracy of a mirror
held up to the object it seeks to reflect.”5 Walker here waxes lyrical over
a topic that—like the Lisztian duel—has become a staple in Liszt scholarship. Indeed, Humphrey Searle, writing almost 20 years before
Walker, calls Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique “surely one of the most unpianistic works ever written!” He, too, supplies the same eight measures
from the “Marche” as a self-understood explanation of Liszt’s superhuman ability to “recast the texture [of Berlioz’s original] as to make
the piano give an orchestral effect.”6
There is no doubt that the Symphonie fantastique arrangement offers
a snapshot of just how far Liszt’s already impressive keyboard technique
and keen investigation of the pianoforte’s sonic potential had progressed
by 1833. Liszt himself considered the transcription his most ambitious
work to date, and he would not publish compositions of such scope until
almost half a decade later, when he launched the Vingt-quatres grandes
4 See Robert Schumann, “ ‘Aus dem Leben eines Künstlers.’ Phantastische Symphonie
in 5 Abtheilungen von Hector Berlioz,” NZfM 3/1, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (3 July, 31 July–14
August 1835): 1–2, 33–35, 37–38, 41–51. Two valuable English translations of Schumann’s review exist: Hector Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, ed. Edward T. Cone (New York:
Norton, 1971), 222–48; and Robert Schumann, “Review of Berlioz: Fantastic Symphony,”
in Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Ian Bent (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1996), 2:161–94.
5 Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811–1847 (Ithaca: Cornell Univ.
Press, 1983; rev. ed. 1988), 180–81.
6 Humphrey Searle, The Music of Liszt (New York: Dover, 1966), 7–8.
197
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 198
the journal of musicology
198
études (retitled for the 1851 publication as the Etudes d’exécution transcendante), the Schubert song arrangements, and the first batch of
opera fantasies in the wake of what was to become a decade-long European tour. Even though Liszt rarely performed the Symphonie fantastique
arrangement publicly during this period (and even then only a selected
movement or two), the work is exemplary of a practice ascribed to Liszt
by Searle, Walker, and many other commentators—namely, Liszt’s musical dissemination of works written by his musical heroes and contemporaries. Walker’s statement can be taken as representative: “His chief motive was to help the poverty-stricken Berlioz, whose symphony remained
unknown and unpublished. Liszt bore the expense of printing his keyboard transcription himself, and he played it in public mainly to popularize the original score.”7
While certainly true to a degree, such accounts often reduce Liszt’s
involvement to one of routine and passive promotion, a one-sided exchange whereby Berlioz benefits from Liszt’s toils. Moreover, they overlook the fundamental importance that arrangements played in shaping
Liszt’s general artistic aesthetic as well as his compositional and literary
endeavors during the 1830s and beyond. It is a testament to the biographical allure of the charitable arranger and performer that few
scholars have ventured to explain exactly how Liszt performing his own
reduction alongside the original could raise awareness of Berlioz’s full
score. Instead, the inherited histories of the Liszt-Berlioz relationship
and the Symphonie fantastique have helped shape a seemingly analytic
truth about Liszt’s musical arrangements: Since we understand their
chief role to be one of dissemination and by extension preservation, fidelity to the original work becomes its most prized feature.
But transcriptions always document musical intersections, and pigeonholing Liszt’s keyboard arrangements as abstract paragons of
musical reproduction often divorces them from—indeed, denies us—
the milieu of their creation and early dissemination. Conceiving the
history of Liszt’s Symphonie fantastique arrangement as a series of often
independent reactions by its creators and auditors helps reveal a more
complex history, one that involves two of the most important artists of
the Romantic era. Correspondence as well as manuscript evidence sug7 Walker, Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 180. Observations by Serge Gut (Franz Liszt [Paris:
Éditions de Fallois/L’Age d’Homme, 1989], 37) and D. Kern Holoman (Berlioz [Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989], 110), penned around the same time as Walker’s biography, similarly restate Humphrey Searle’s formulation that “the purpose of the transcription was of course to help Berlioz at a time when he found it difficult to get orchestral
performances of his works: Liszt not only played it in his own concerts, but actually bore
the expenses of its publication, so that it could reach as wide a public as possible” (The
Music of Liszt, 8).
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 199
kregor
gest that their collaboration extended well beyond the confines of the
Symphony: Realizing the work for piano challenged Liszt to extend
the possibilities of his technique, and marketing his transcription
prompted publishers to create music that mediated between the virtuosic concert stage and the amateur’s domestic sphere. In this view, Liszt
and his works constitute a virtual archive of contemporary artistic reception. Scrutinizing the Symphonie fantastique in conception, on stage,
and in print means harnessing the mechanisms of composition, spectacle, and technology, and the result approaches a more nuanced understanding of Liszt’s most emblematic piano transcription.
Realization and Collaboration
The transcription of the Symphonie fantastique came into being during one of the most remarkable periods of artistic growth in Liszt’s life
and one of the most unstable in Berlioz’s, and it continues to be considered a linchpin—a project that inspired, solidified, and sustained their
relationship during the 1830s and 1840s. Although ecstatic impressions
from concertgoers like Hallé have tended to craft a modern bias of
accomplishment in Liszt’s favor and downplay Berlioz’s role in its production, a broader view of the early history of the Symphonie fantastique
—not only the transcription but also the full score—reveals an almost
uninterrupted collaborative effort between the two artists. This high
level of investment in each other’s work hardly diminished when
Liszt published the Symphonie fantastique transcription in 1834, for his
arrangements of Berlioz’s orchestral pieces from the second half of the
1830s, particularly that of the Ouverture des francs-juges, bear the fingerprints of a symbiotic relationship. Each continued to support the other
with favorable reviews in an otherwise antagonistic French press, and by
the late 1830s their joint concerts had already become legendary, especially to their audiences east of Paris. Indeed, it was Liszt, riding high
on the heels of his own successes in Vienna and Pest, who finally persuaded Berlioz to undertake a German tour in the early 1840s. The
move, which was to take their careers in opposite directions, exacted a
heavy toll on their relationship. Efforts, sometimes spectacular, were
made on both sides to overlook the growing chasm between their artistic preferences, but Liszt and Berlioz never fully recovered the spirit of
artistic camaraderie they had so enjoyed in the 1830s.
Few stories make for better biographical reading than that of the
circumstances surrounding their first encounter. The 19-year-old pianist, in the wake of an aborted Symphonie révolutionnaire inspired by
the July Revolution and living in relative isolation in Paris, met the
brash Berlioz on the eve of the premiere of the latter’s controversial
199
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 200
the journal of musicology
200
new Symphonie fantastique. As Berlioz would recall years later in his Mémoires (chap. 31), the two spoke of Goethe’s Faust and immediately realized that they shared the same artistic predispositions. Liszt heard the
Symphony the next day and was so overcome by it that he dragged the
27-year-old French composer off to dinner for another round of discussion about literature, the arts, and the state of musical romanticism.
Of course, there was talk of the Symphony too, and Liszt succeeded
in convincing Berlioz that his new composition might profit from an
outsider’s sympathetic ear. Indeed, it is usually overlooked that the first
phase of their collaboration on the Symphonie fantastique seems to have
begun almost immediately after its 5 December 1830 premiere, with
the usually guarded Berlioz eagerly sharing his epic score with the pianist. His first surviving letter to Liszt vividly paints the enthusiasm that
both artists shared at the prospect of this artistic alliance: “I have not
been able to send you the score of my Symphony any sooner, for I am
forced to keep the ‘Bal’ scene, which I am now arranging for piano. I
am really afraid of abusing your time and kindness in asking you to
look at the other movements. Believe me, sir, that I am filled with gratitude over the support that you have already so readily wanted to give
me, along with the advice that you promise me—for me they are of inestimable value.”8 (By the next surviving letter, the two musicians are
already addressing each other with the personal “tu” form.)
If Berlioz arranged the second movement for piano toward the end
of 1830, it is no longer extant, but the idea held currency for at least
another two years.9 He did, however, re-work substantial portions of the
Symphonie fantastique while in Italy during his Prix de Rome tenure, and a
revised version was performed at the Conservatoire—again with an enthusiastic Liszt in the audience—on 9 December 1832 under FrançoisAntoine Habeneck’s baton.10 Although it has often been suggested that
8 C.G.I, 21 December 1830, p. 393. “Je n’ai pas pu envoyer plus tôt la partition de
ma symphonie, encore je suis obligé de garder la scène du Bal que j’arrange pour le piano. Je crains bien d’abuser de votre temps et de votre complaisance en vous priant de
vouloir bien les examiner; croyez, Monsieur, que je suis pénétré de reconnaissance pour
les encouragements que vous avez bien voulu me donner déjà, et pour les conseils que
vous me promettez; ils seront pour moi d’un prix inestimable.”
9 Letter of 19 January 1833 to Joseph d’Ortigue, in C.G.II, pp. 67–68. “Je n’ai pas
besoin de vous dire qu’il ne faut pas songer à arranger le bas [= le bal ] à quatre mains.” Incidentally, this purported arrangement of the second movement is not the fragment of
“Un bal” preserved in Berlioz’s hand located in the Musée Hector Berlioz at La CôteSaint-André. See Jérôme Dorival et al., eds., Catalogue des fonds musicaux conservés en Région
Rhône-Alpes: Les manuscrits (1600–1870) (Lyon: Ardim, 1998), 1:111.
10 The most detailed account of the (sometimes substantial) changes that Berlioz
made to his score between the 1830 and 1832 performances is D. Kern Holoman, The
Creative Process in the Autograph Musical Documents of Hector Berlioz, c. 1818–1840 (Ann Arbor:
UMI Research Press, 1980), esp. 262–82. Thomas Forrest Kelly provides a succinct
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 201
kregor
this concert prompted Liszt to transcribe the work, it was actually the
2 May 1833 performance in the Hôtel de L’Europe littéraire in Paris that
convinced him. (Significant for Liszt’s future performances of his transcription is the fact that only the second, third, and fourth movements
were mounted.) An excited Liszt wrote to Marie d’Agoult that “last
night I again heard . . . Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Never has this
work appeared so complete, so true. If I am not dead by the end of
June, I will probably set it, arrange it for piano, regardless of whatever
pain and difficulty this enterprise will cost me. I am certain that you will
be more astonished by its reading than its execution.”11
Liszt’s final statement somewhat enigmatically conveys the novelties
of his transcription. He would write Adolphe Pictet in 1838 that he was
“the one who first proposed a new method of transcription in my piano
score of the Symphonie fantastique. I applied myself as scrupulously as if
I were translating a sacred text to transferring, not only the symphony’s
musical framework, but also its detailed effects and the multiplicity
of its instrumental and rhythmic combinations to the piano.”12 But
Liszt was being too modest. His intention, as the May 1833 letter makes
clear, was not merely to reproduce Berlioz’s music but to offer a nuanced recreation of a performance that brought together the originality of Berlioz’s composition with Liszt’s technical accomplishments. In
effect, the goal of the “reading” was to draw attention to the elements
that made Berlioz’s work so innovative by fusing notes with gestures. Liszt
absorbed Berlioz’s orchestral performance into his own technique, creating a matrix that operated on several distinct hermeneutic levels.
Example 1, from Liszt’s transcription of the slow introduction to the
first movement, begins around the middle of the transition back to the
“Estelle” theme.13 At measure 23, where the sustain pedal is noticeably
summary of Holoman’s findings as well as some new material in his First Nights: Five Musical Premieres (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2000), 226–35.
11 Liszt/d’Agoult, 3 May 1833, p. 57. “J’ai réentendu hier soir, à la soirée de l’Europe littéraire, la Symphonie fantastique de Berlioz; jamais cette œuvre ne m’avait paru
aussi complète, aussi vraie. Si je ne suis pas tué d’ici à la fin de Juin probablement je
me mettrai à l’œuvre, je l’arrangerai pour piano, quelque peine et difficulté qu’il y ait à
cette entreprise. Je suis persuadé que vous en serez encore plus étonnée à la lecture qu’à
l’exécution.”
12 Franz Liszt, An Artist’s Journey: Lettres d’un bachelier ès musique, 1835–1841, ed. and
trans. Charles Suttoni (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1989), 46–47.
13 All relevant examples are taken from Maurice Schlesinger’s 1834 print of the
Symphonie fantastique transcription (see Fig. 1). This edition is more germane to the following discussion, since many of the more characteristic performance markings do not
make their way into the 1877 revised edition and therefore the Neue Liszt Ausgabe (II/16).
For an examination of the editorial policies of the Neue Liszt Ausgabe as they affect the
critical edition of the Symphonie fantastique arrangement, see Jay Rosenblatt, review of
“Transkriptionen I: Transkriptionen der Werke von Hector Berlioz,” Notes 53 (1997):
1313–16.
201
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 202
the journal of musicology
example 1. Symphonie fantastique, “Rêveries, passions,” mm. 22–25,
Liszt arrangement
ritar
−
Š −− ‡
22
!
− ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ¦ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ
poco
Ý −− ‡
−
più
8va
!
!
forte
Š
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ¦Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
¦ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ² ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ
Ł
−− ¦ Ł Ł ² Ł Ł ¦ Ł ¦ Ł ŁŁ ¦ Ł −Ł ŁŁ −Ł ¦ Ł −ŁŁ ¦¦ ŁŁ Ł
−
Ł ¦ Ł −Ł Ł
Š ¦ Ł Ł ²Ł Ł
Ł
len
ral
p
Slentan
− ¹
¹
Š − − ¦ ŁŁŁŁ
ŁŁŁ
−
Ł
Ł
¦
l
l
l
ben marcato il canto
ten
^[
n
Ł
24
Flute ð
−− − Oboi ð ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ ŁŁ
Š Clari l l l l l l
l l
n
^[
dolente
Sempre
l l l l l l l l
Basson Ł
Ł ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł ŁŁŁ Ł
ð
Ý −−
Ł Ł Ł
− n
Ł
Ł
Ł
^[ ~
n
Ł
25
ð
−− − ð ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ ^[ Ł ŁŁ ŁŁ
Š
nl l l l l l ^[ l l
l l l l l l l l
ŁŁð ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł
Ý −−
Ł Ł
Ł
− n
Ł
Ł
^[
~
23
202
do
loco
decres. molto
!
dan
Ł Ł ¦ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł −Ł Ł ¦ Ł Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł −Ł Ł ¦ Ł Ł
Ł −Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ¦ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁ Ł Ł
Ł ² Ł ¦ ŁŁ
l l
ŁŁ ŁŁ
tan
do
do
¹
ŁŁl
ŁŁ
l
l
Ł
Ł Ł Ł
Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ
l l l
l l l
ŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ
Ł
Ł ŁŁ
l
l
ŁŁ
ŁŁ
l
l
Ł
ŁŁl ŁŁl
ŁŁ
ŁŁ
l
l
ŁŁŁ
−¦ Ł ŁŁ
¦Ł
l
l
− ŁŁ
¦Ł
Ý
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 203
kregor
absent, the pianist is forced to contort the right hand into uncomfortable positions in order to maintain the integrity of the three voices. In
the next measure the winds enter with their main melody; and as the
texture thickens considerably, the demands on the pianist recede. Thus
the welcome arrival of a more subdued, settled theme at measure 24 is
reflected in Liszt’s arrangement by the analogous technical relief.
Liszt’s detailed setting of the work—neatly encapsulated under the concept of what he called a partition de piano —provides a visual component
to the action of Berlioz’s Symphony as it serves to guide the auditor and
highlight important formal junctures.
But there are also analytic elements etched into Liszt’s reading of
Berlioz’s score. His treatment of the idée fixe in the first three movements
provides one of the more noticeable examples. Schumann wrote that
this “principal motive to the Symphony is by itself neither pretty nor
suitable for contrapuntal treatment, but it improves more and more on
acquaintance through its later appearances.”14 Liszt encourages this acquaintance by fashioning accompaniments of the idée fixe (see Exs. 2a–c)
that begin to resemble one another over the course of the first three
movements. Much to the detriment of the pianist’s left hand, Liszt reduces Berlioz’s full score almost note for note in the first movement.
(The violent manner in which the pianist must execute the treacherous
downward leaps of m. 84ff creates an even clearer profile for the idée
fixe.) In the second movement, the shimmering tremolo accompaniment is routinely punctuated with left-hand leaps of a 10th or 11th—
that is, one octave more than Berlioz calls for in his score. Note here
that Liszt does not double both the A and F or E and C in measure 123
—it is the leaping figure that he wishes to highlight. This motive heralds the arrival of the idée fixe in the next movement at measure 87, and
it is the first sound heard in the left hand as each phrase of the beloved’s
melody emerges from its recitative-like state (see mm. 91 and 95). To be
sure, Berlioz provided the initial figurations for Liszt’s reading, but it
fell to the pianist to draw greater attention to their consistent profile. It
is little wonder, then, that his earliest mature works—for example the
first versions of the “Dante” Sonata or the “Vallée d’Obermann”—are
built on similar foundations of motivic unity.
These readings came rather quickly to Liszt, for he completed the
transcription in fewer than four months. The process was by no means
easy. On 30 August 1833, as Liszt was adding the finishing touches, he
entreated d’Agoult to “say three ‘Our Fathers’ and three ‘Hail Marys’
14 “Phantastische Symphonie,” NZfM 3/11 (7 August 1835): 43. “Das Hauptmotiv
zur Symphonie, an sich weder schön, noch zur contrapunctischen Arbeit geeignet,
gewinnt immer mehr surch die späteren Stellungen.”
203
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 204
the journal of musicology
example 2a. Symphonie fantastique, “Rêveries, passions,” mm. 72–86,
Liszt arrangement
][ espressivo con passione
Ł Łý Ł ð
Ł
Š ‡ ÐŁŁ
Ł ¼ ½
ð
72
!
݇ Ł ¼ ½
Ł
ÿ
78
!
Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł
ÝŁ Ł ¼ Ł Ł ¼
l l
l l
ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł
Ł
Ł
l l ¼ l l ¼
Š ð
²ð
^[
Ý
ÿ
83
204
!
Ł
ŁŁ
l
Ł
ŁŁ
l
ð
ð
Ł
Ł ¼
Ł
l
ð
ð
ÿ
ÿ
Ł ð
Ł
Ł
Łý
ÿ
ð
Ł
Ł ¼
Ł
l
ð
ÿ
¹ Ł Ð
¼ ¼
ð
4
ð
ÿ
ŠÐ
agitato sotto voce
ð
ð
ÿ
¦ð
ð
ÿ
ŁŁ
Ł
l
ÿ
ŁŁ
Ł ¼
l
¼
Ł
Ł
Ł
ŁŁ
l
Ł
Ł ¼
Ł
l
example 2b. Symphonie fantastique, “Un bal,” mm. 120–24, Liszt
arrangement
²²
Š ² 4/
flute et hautbois
main gauche
molto espressivo
¦ Ł
120
!
Ý ²²² /
4
² ² ¦Ł
Š ² ¦Ł
Ł
¦ Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł
Ý ²²²
ÿ
les deux pedales
122
!
¦ Łý
¦¦ ŁŁ
Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
− ¦ ŁŁŁ ¦ Ł ŁŁŁ Ł ŁŁŁ Ł ŁŁŁ Ł ŁŁŁ Ł ŁŁŁ Ł
¦Ł
¦ ŁŁŁ
Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ÿ
n
Ł
¦ Ł ¦Ł
Ł
Ł Ł Ł
¹
Łl
\\\
lm
− ŁŁ
¦
−Ł
Ł
−Ł
Ł
p
¦ −− ŁŁŁ
−Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
gardez toujours la pedale douce
¦ Łl
³ Łl
¦ Łl
³ ¹
~
¦ Łl
Łl
¦ ŁŁ ¦ Ł
Ł
³ ¦ Łl
¦ Łl
Ł
³
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 205
kregor
example 2c. Symphonie fantastique, “Scène aux champs,” mm. 90–95,
Liszt arrangement
!
flutes et hautbois
con carattere di recitativo
−Ł
Š − 42 ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ý Ł Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł
\
Ý − 2 Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ¹ ¼ý
4
\
90
ŁŁ Ł Ł
Ł Ł Ł
o
¹ ¹ ŁŁ Ło ³ Ł −Ł
[ marcatissimo
Ł Ł Ł Ł
¼ý
diminuendo
Š − −ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł
92
!
¦ Ło − Ło
¦ Ł −Ł
Łý
Ý − Łý
[[
~
Ło
Ł
Ło
Ł
Ło
Ł
Ło
Ł
Ło
Ł
Ło
Ł
decres
Š − −ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł ŁŁ
\
93
!
¹
Ł¹
Ł
recitativo
Ý− Ł
Łu
−Ł
− Łu
Łý
Łý
Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł ¦¦ ŁŁ Ł
Ł Ł
Š − Łý
94
!
−Ło
−Ł
Ý−
ÿ
¹
Ł
Ł
\
Ł
−Ł
Ł Łp Ł
Ł
−Ł
Ł ÝŁ
[
p
Ł
ý
Ł
¹ ¹ ŁŁ Ł ¾ Ł Ł ý
[ marcatissimo[[ ~
Ł
Ł
¹
ŁŁŁŁŁŁ
Ł Ł Ł
Ło Ło Ło
Ł Ł Ł
for its benefit.”15 Her prayers must have been answered, for on the
same day Berlioz wrote to Humbert Ferrand that “Liszt has just arranged
15 Liszt/d’Agoult, 30 August 1833, p. 84. “La Symphonie fantastique sera terminée
dimanche soir; dites trois Pater et trois Ave en son intention.”
205
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 206
the journal of musicology
206
my symphony for piano—it is astonishing.”16 But Berlioz was still reporting on the novelty of the transcription to Ferrand almost two months
later, writing that “Liszt has just reduced my entire Symphonie for piano”
and that it will soon be engraved.17
Berlioz’s repetitious comments suggest either that Liszt did not
complete all five movements of the transcription by the end of August
1833 or that he revised them in September and October. (No autograph manuscript of any portion of the transcription before the 1860s
has been located.) Perhaps the thought of publishing the work necessitated a thorough revision, but Liszt just as easily may have been readying the transcription for its private premiere in d’Agoult’s salon. In her
Mémoires she recalls that “at my places in both Paris and in the countryside, the 1833–1834 season offered good music. New compositions of
the musical Romanticism were played, [including] Berlioz’s Symphonie
fantastique arranged for the piano by Liszt.”18 Introducing demanding
new works in an intimate venue was not unique for Liszt, who preferred
throughout his concert years to premiere works by his contemporaries
outside the concert hall. For example, in 1839 he wrote to Robert Schumann of his enthusiasm for playing Carnaval, the Davidsbündlertänze, and
the Kinderscenen for the Viennese public yet was reluctant to introduce
the Kreisleriana and the Fantasy in C. In Liszt’s eyes, the former were readily accessible to an audience, whereas the latter were “more difficult for
the public to digest—I shall save them for later.”19 Liszt’s performance
of the Fantasy, for example, likely took place behind closed doors during his visit to Leipzig in 1840.
With a successful private premiere already behind it, the transcription of the Symphonie fantastique was engraved by May 1834 at the latest.
Both Liszt and Berlioz checked the proofs, a process that initially did
not seem to pose many difficulties. Liszt, whose concert activities before
late 1834 were sporadic, hoped to precede his arrival on the public stage
with a spectacular showing in the marketplace. He relates to d’Agoult
16 C.G.II, 30 August 1833, p. 113. “Liszt vient d’arranger ma symphonie pour le
piano; c’est étonnant.”
17 C.G.II, 25 October 1833, p. 128. “Liszt vient de réduire pour le piano seul la
Symphonie entière.”
18 Marie d’Agoult/Daniel Stern, Mémoires, souvenirs et journaux de la Comtesse d’Agoult
(Daniel Stern), ed. Charles F. Dupêchez (Paris: Mercure de France, 1990), 1:264. “Pendant
une saison, . . . [on] faisait aussi chez moi, à Paris et à la campagne, de bonne musique;
on y jouait les compositions nouvelles du romantisme musical: La Symphonie fantastique de
Berlioz, arrangée pour le piano par Liszt.” Dupêchez bases the date of this season on unpublished letters by d’Agoult from August and September 1833 (see pp. 413–14).
19 Letter of 5 June 1839 in Franz Liszt, Briefe, ed. La Mara (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1893–1905), 1:27. “En attendant je compte jouer en public votre Carnaval, quelquesuns des Davidsbündlertänze et des Kinderscenen. Le Kreisleriana et la Fantaisie qui m’est
dédiée, sont de digestion plus difficile pour le public—je les réserverai pour plus tard.”
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 207
kregor
that “I will not write anything for a month, as a number of corrections
here have to be taken care of. By the beginning of winter I shall have
seven or eight pieces engraved.”20 The transcription, in fact, was to be
his magnum opus, the apotheosis of a half-decade of self-regulated
study of the masters: Liszt proudly informed his student Valérie Boissier
of its imminent arrival in mid summer 1834 that “in two weeks I shall
have the honor of sending you the first copy of the Symphonie fantastique.
With it you will then have a collection of rather large things.”21
Rumors of a transcription of Berlioz’s Symphony by Liszt reached
Germany around the time of his letter to Boissier. An anonymous “Brief
aus Paris” informed readers of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik that “the
most amazing difficulties are but child’s play to Liszt. He sight-reads
everything, dexterously and instantly, with such an artifice and perfection that anyone else might only be able to pick out were he to spend
endless hours practicing. The reader can glean an idea of his playing
by procuring his four-hand arrangement of a symphony by Berlioz that
will appear shortly at [Maurice] Schlesinger’s.”22 The source of this
Liszt/d’Agoult, 1 May 1834, p. 128. “Je n’écrirai point avant un mois–il me faudra faire une quantité de corrections d’ici là au commencement de l’hiver j’aurai 7 à 8
Œuvres de gravées.” Berlioz explains to Ferrand around the middle of the month (C.G.II,
p. 184) that “the Symphony has been engraved and we are correcting the proofs, but it
will not appear until Liszt returns from Normandy, where he will spend four or five
weeks” (“La Symphonie est gravée nous corrigeons les épreuves, mais elle ne paraîtra pas
avant le retour de Liszt, qui vient de partir pour la Normandie, où il passera quatre ou
cinq semaines”).
21 Letter of June 1834 in Robert Bory, “Diverses lettres inédites de Liszt,” Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft 3 (1928): 64. “J’aurai l’honneur de vous envoyer le
Ier exemplaire de la Symphonie fantastique dans une quinzaine; puis, vous aurez successivement une quantité d’assez grosses choses.” Bory suggested the date of this letter as “Spring
1834,” but Adrian Williams (ed. and trans., Franz Liszt: Selected Letters [Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1998], 28–29) has been able to narrow the date down to late June or early July
1834.
22 NZfM 1/18 (2 June 1834): 72. “Ihm [Liszt] sind die tollsten Schwierigkeiten
Kinderspiele, er spielt vom Blatt Alles sogleich ganz fertig, mit allen Künsten, mit allen
Vollkommenheiten, die er [sic; should probably read “ein Anderer”] nach langem Ueben
desselben Stücks nur würde herausklauben können. Sie werden eine ungefähre Idee von
seinem Spiel erlangen, wenn Sie eine Symphonie von Berlioz, die er vierhändig arrangirt
hat, und die binnen kurzem bei Schlesinger hier erscheinen wird, zu Gesicht bekommen
werden.” It is possible that the author is Heinrich Panofka, the Parisian-based music
teacher and critic who worked for the Gazette et revue musicale, acted as a correspondent
for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and was a strong supporter of Berlioz’s.
It is understandable that the correspondent assumes a four-hand transcription,
which was by far the most popular keyboard medium during the 19th century. See Helmut Loos, Zur Klavierübertragung von Werken für und mit Orchester des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich and Salzburg: Emil Katzbichler, 1983), 8; and Thomas Christensen, “FourHand Piano Transcription and Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Musical Reception,”
Journal of the American Musicological Society 52 (1999): 258–89. Given this musical climate,
Liszt’s solo transcription of Berlioz’s First Symphony becomes all the more unusual.
20
207
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 208
the journal of musicology
208
report is unclear, and though it is dubious in several respects (how can
one get a sense of Liszt’s technique by playing through a four-hand
transcription?), it nevertheless represents the first mention of the work
outside private correspondence.
More important is the way in which the author here appropriates
the Symphonie fantastique transcription to frame Liszt’s celebrated technique. Indeed, the report seems to corroborate Liszt’s statement that his
Berlioz arrangement defines him better musically than any other work
he has thus far produced. Schumann agreed, and like the anonymous
Parisian correspondent similarly highlighted the educational benefits
that Liszt’s transcription could provide aspiring pianists. “Liszt,” he
wrote toward the end of his long review, “has applied so much industry,
enthusiasm, and genius that the result, like an original work summarizing his profound studies, must be considered as a practical method of
instruction in playing a score at the piano.”23 Schumann’s formulation,
of course, precisely sums up the most important elements of a successful musical reproduction, but since Schumann had never seen Liszt or
Berlioz, he could not appreciate just how skillfully Liszt’s piano score
recreated the dynamics of performance. Instead, the symphonic ambition of Liszt’s arrangement offered Schumann new solutions to his
own works, as Carnaval, the Etudes symphoniques, and the Piano Sonata,
op. 11, were all in progress by the summer of 1834. And Schumann’s
great Fantasy in C major, which appeared in April 1839 with a dedication to Liszt, takes the symphonic ambition of the Symphonie fantastique
arrangement to one of its most refined levels. For example, a likely
model for measures 35–41 from the second movement of Schumann’s
work—which requires hand crossing, demands crisp articulation, and
registrally expands from out to in and then back out (> <)—can be
found in the fourth movement, measures 49–59, of Liszt’s partition de
piano. Indeed, it possesses many of the same elements, the only difference being that the contour is opposite: going from closed to open and
back to closed position (< >).24
23 Translation modified from Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, ed. Cone, 244. The original (NZfM 3/12 [11 August 1835]: 47) reads: “Liszt hat [den Clavierauszug] mit so viel
Fleiß, Begeisterung und Genie ausgearbeitet, daß er wie ein Originalwerk, ein Resümee
seiner tiefen Studien, als praktische Clavierschule im Partiturspiel angesehen werden
muß.”
24 Theo Hirsbrunner has documented several textural parallels between Schumann’s Fantasy and Liszt’s arrangement, suggesting that “doch kennt er [Schumann]
auch subtilere Töne, die aber wieder wie die Übertragung aus einem Orchesterstück anmuten” (Hirsbrunner, “Schumann und Berlioz,” in Hector Berlioz: Ein Franzose in Deutschland, eds. Matthias Brzoska, Hermann Hofer, and Nicole K. Strohmann [Laaber: LaaberVerlag, 2005], 56.). Indeed, Hirsbrunner would have found even more parallels between
the two works had he made use of the Schlesinger print from 1834 rather than drawing
upon examples found in the Neue Liszt Ausgabe or the revised 1877 print.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 209
kregor
Liszt’s arrangement would have been available to Schumann toward
the end of November, for its publisher Maurice Schlesinger advertised
the work for the first time in his Gazette musicale de Paris on 9 November
1834.25 A week earlier, Schlesinger had announced an upcoming concert by Berlioz that would feature a version of the Symphonie fantastique
to which “M. Berlioz has added several new orchestral effects to his
work that noticeably increase its brilliance.”26 This type of multifaceted
advertising campaign was typical for the business-savvy Schlesinger, and
for much of the following decade the fate of the printed work would be
closely allied with that of the performed work.
* * *
This unusually close relationship on stage and in print was hardly
spontaneous. From conception to publication, the early course of the
Symphonie fantastique transcription had been navigated by both Berlioz
and Liszt. The correspondence of the two composers harbors many details that shed further light on the intricacies of the work’s genesis. Liszt
reviewed Berlioz’s full score shortly after the work’s premiere, perhaps
even offering advice to Berlioz as to how it might be improved. And
while there is no evidence to suggest that Berlioz incorporated Liszt’s
recommendations (whatever they may have been) into later versions of
his work, Berlioz does note in his Mémoires (chap. 31) that the third
movement made no impression on his audience at the premiere and
that he resolved to rewrite it immediately.
Berlioz was still modifying the full score when Liszt began transcribing the work in May 1833, and would continue to do so for the next
decade. Indeed, it is often overlooked that Liszt’s arrangement bears
witness to a version of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique that no longer
exists, or at least is no longer performed with any regularity. Berlioz’s
25 See the Gazette musicale de Paris 1/45 (9 November 1834): 364, where the work is
listed as “Musique nouvelle, | Publiée par Maurice Schlesinger. | Épisode de la Vie d’un
Artiste, | Simphonie fantastique en cinq parties, par Berlioz, arrangée | pour le piano par
| LISZT. | Prix net 20 fr.” Berlioz writes to Humbert Ferrand on 30 November 1834
(C.G.II, p. 208) that “the Symphonie fantastique has appeared, but since Liszt has
invested a huge amount of money in its publication, we, along with Schlesinger, have
decided not to allow a single copy to be given away” (“La Symphonie Fantastique a paru;
mais, comme ce pauvre Liszt a dépensé horriblement d’argent pour cette publication,
nous sommes convenus avec Schlesinger de ne pas consentir à ce qu’il donne un seul
exemplaire.”). Indeed, it seems that Liszt’s partition was not released until the end of
the month, for an announcement in the Gazette musicale de Paris on 30 November
(p. 388) states that “La grande symphonie fantastique de Hector Berlioz en partition de
piano, arrangée par Liszt, vient de paraître. Nous rendrons compte de cette importante
publication.”
26 “Nouvelles,” Gazette musicale de Paris 1/44 (2 November 1834): 356. “M. Berlioz a
ajouté à son ouvrage plusiers effets d’orchestre nouveaux qui en augmenteront sensiblement l’éclat.”
209
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 210
the journal of musicology
210
initial programs for the second movement, for instance, explained that
“The artist finds himself in the most varied of life’s situations—at the
center of a rousing party, in the peaceful contemplation of nature’s
beauties; but everywhere—in town, in the country—the dear image appears before him, throwing his mind into a troubled state.”27 Indeed,
the first appearance of the idée fixe in the second movement of Liszt’s
arrangement (Ex. 3)28—the beloved’s apparition to the artist among a
sea of partygoers—is a striking tableau of the protagonist’s mental condition. The beloved’s theme maintains the regular three count of the
nearby waltz, but the accompaniment operates in spasmodic two-beat
pulses. This hocket effect is further distinguished by a sudden reduction in the orchestral scoring, with the accompaniment given over to a
handful of plaintive strings that snake throughout the upper registers.
Thus with all musical action coming to a grinding halt, the awkwardness of the artist’s situation becomes the focal point of the movement.
Berlioz smoothed over the jarring lines of this scene when he carried
out one of his many revisions sometime after 1834, replacing the metrical dissonances with fragments of the waltz motive in the strings. And
he would eventually reduce the psychological impact of this musical
event by similarly streamlining the plot of the entire movement: “[The
artist] encounters the loved one at a dance,” Berlioz now envisions,
“in the midst of the tumult of a brilliant party.”29 (The pianist Idil Biret,
in what is one of the earliest recordings of Liszt’s transcription committed to compact disc, incorporates Berlioz’s later revisions of these measures into her interpretation, creating a product that does not correspond to any published version.)30
D. Kern Holoman, in his study of Berlioz’s autograph manuscripts,
notes that Liszt’s piano score diverges from Berlioz’s published orchestral score in several minor spots as well. Berlioz, Holoman opines, may
have been inspired by some of the solutions Liszt put forth in his
27 As it reads in the program included with Liszt’s arrangement: “L’artiste est placé
dans les circonstances de la vie les plus diverses; au milieu du tumulte d’une fête, dans la
paisible contemplation des beautés de la nature; mais partout, à la ville, aux champs, l’image chérie vient se présenter à lui et jeter le trouble dans son âme.”
28 The full score of this passage is included in Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
(vol. 16 of Hector Berlioz: New Edition of the Complete Works), ed. Nicholas Temperley (Kassel:
Bärenreiter, 1972), 198.
29 As it reads in the program included in Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, ed. Cone, 32–
33. “Il retrouve l’aimée dans un bal au milieu du tumulte d’une fête brillante.”
30 See Franz Liszt, Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Piano Transcription), Idil Biret, piano
(Naxos 8.550725 [1992]), track 2, 205–227. Biret is perhaps the first modern pianist
to have performed Liszt’s transcription in its entirety. See her recording of the work, Symphonie Fantastique. Solo Piano Version by Franz Liszt (Finnadar SR 9023 [1979]). Leslie
Howard’s recording of the same composition (Hyperion CDA66433 [1991]) preserves a
reading very close to that of the new Liszt critical edition.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 211
kregor
example 3. Symphonie fantastique, “Un bal,” mm. 131–46, Liszt
arrangement
²²
Š ² 4/ ¦ ŁŁ ¦ Ł
131
!
!
!
molto pronunziato
il canto
Ý ²²² / ¾ ý
4
²²
Š ²
136
¦Ł
¦Ł
Ł
¹
¦ Ł ¦ Łl
Ł
Ł
¾
¾ ¹
n
¦ ŁŁ ¦ ¦ ŁŁ Ł
sempre
~
~
141
ŁŁ
²²² ¦¦ ŁŁ −− ŁŁ −− ŁŁ
Ł
Š
²² n
Š ² −−ŁŁ
cres
²²
Š ²
²Ł Ł
cen
¾
¦Ł
¦Ł
−Ł
Ł
¹ ¹Š
¾ −Ł ¦ Ł ¾
~
\\ lamentoso ¦Ł
²Ł
Ł
Ł
^[
Ł ¦ Ł
Ł ¦Ł
¦ Ł Ł
Ł ¦Ł
Ł
¾
−Ł
¦Ł
Ł
¦Ł
¾
~ ~ − Ł Ł
−Ł Ł
¦Ł ¦Ł
¦Ł
¦Ł
perdendendo
Ł
¾
−Ł ¦ Ł
¾
²Ł ¦Ł
Ł ¦Ł
¾ ¹
poco
Ł ²Ł
~ ¾
¦Ł Ł
n
¦ Ł ¦ Ł
¾ ¦Ł ¦Ł
a
¾ ¦Ł
²Ł
¾ ¹ ¦ ŁŁ
cantando
¦ Ł
¦Ł
poco
¾ ¦Ł
Ł
~ ~ ¾
¾
dolce
sospirando
²Ł
²Ł
−Ł
Ł
n
¾ ²Ł
−Ł −Ł
Ł Ł ¹
~ ~ ~
n
Ł − Łn − ŁŁ ŁŁ − Ł ¦ Ł ¦ Ł Ł
Ł
¦Ł
Ł Ł ¦ Ł ¦ ŁŁ
Ł Ł −Ł
do
Ł ²Ł
Ł ²Ł
Ł
Ł
−Ł Ł
Ł ²Ł
~
¦Ł
¾
¦ Ł
¾ ¦ Ł
¾ ¹
arrangement when Berlioz revised his orchestral score sometime in the
later 1830s. Most notable is the first occurrence in Liszt’s edition of
the “consolations religieuses” in the accompanying program at the end
of the first movement, the musical analogue of which coincidentally
lends itself well to piano reduction.31 But although Holoman suggests
that the addition was probably incorporated at the last minute, the first
edition issued by Maurice Schlesinger in November 1834—which was
subsequently reprinted in 1836 with only cosmetic changes to the music
—gives no indication that this passage was engraved hastily.32
Holoman, The Creative Process, 275–76.
The coda begins on the fourth system of page 22 of Schlesinger’s edition. If
Schlesinger had added the section at the last minute, either the preceding pages would
be excessively cramped or the final page of the movement would be unusually bare.
Thomas Forrest Kelly believes that the addition took place at the very beginning of December 1830, perhaps only a day or two before the work’s premiere. See First Nights, 227.
31
32
211
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 212
the journal of musicology
212
Quite the opposite, in fact. Liszt and Berlioz actually spent about as
much time correcting proofs—at least three months—as Liszt did in
making his initial transcription of the entire work. The crestfallen pianist reports to Marie d’Agoult in July 1834 that “the fourth proof
[Liszt’s emphasis] of Berlioz’s Symphony is giving me a headache. It really is a terrible undertaking.”33 That Schlesinger, who was notorious
for running a tight ship with his journal and musical offerings in the
1830s, would acquiesce to such delays is surprising. Indeed, the timeline suggests that changes from proof to proof were more than merely
cosmetic. Although the type of collaboration demonstrated by Liszt and
Berlioz is rare in music-making from this period, the art historian
Stephen Bann reminds us that it is was ubiquitous in the world of the
visual arts. Painters and printmakers, including the Parisian engraver
Luigi Calamatta, whom Liszt knew intimately, often worked side by side
in the same studio, particularly when it came to applying the finishing
touches: Bann writes that “These painters (no doubt in varying degrees)
adapted to considering their works in the light of their possible reproduction, and, at the same time, in the light of the practical arrangements for their marketing.”34
Two heads were of course better than one for catching slips of the
pen and working out last-minute compositional problems, but this
collaboration yielded more substantial dividends as well. The care with
which Liszt and Berlioz prepared the piano score of the Symphonie fantastique is also evident in Liszt’s piano solo arrangements of Berlioz’s
Ouverture des francs-juges and Ouverture du roi Lear, both of which date
from the second half of the 1830s.35 Liszt’s esteem for Berlioz had
hardly abated when Joseph d’Ortigue’s biography of the pianist appeared in 1835 in the pages of Maurice Schlesinger’s Gazette musicale de
33 Liszt/d’Agoult, 7 July 1834, p. 161. “J’ai la tête cassée de la 4me épreuve de la
Symph[onie] Berlioz. Décidément c’est une chose monstrueuse.”
34 Stephen Bann, Parallel Lines: Printmakers, Painters and Photographers in NineteenthCentury France (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2001), 6.
35 The sources are imprecise regarding the dating of these overtures. When Lina
Ramann (Lisztiana: Erinnerungen an Franz Liszt in Tagebuchblättern, Briefen und Dokumenten
aus den Jahren 1873–1886/87, ed. Arthur Seidl, rev. Friedrich Schnapp [Mainz: Schott,
1983], 403) questioned Liszt about the dates of their creation in a December 1875
Fragezettel, he responded that they both came about “during my Swiss trip, [18]35.” However, Berlioz writes Liszt (C.G.II, p. 282) on 25 January 1836 that “Je ne sais comment
t’envoyer les deux partitions que tu me demandes.” A couple of months later Liszt requests his mother to “Demander à Berlioz de ma part de vous remettre la Partition de la
Symphonie d’Harold et de son Ouverture du roi Lear,” suggesting that at least one of the overtures had yet to be arranged (see Franz Liszt, Briefwechsel mit seiner Mutter, ed. Klára Hamburger [Eisenstadt: Burgenländische Landesregierung, 2000], 99). Indeed, Berlioz requests of Liszt (C.G.II, p. 348) on 22 May 1837 that “Si tu en as le temps, arrange donc
l’ouverture du Roi Lear.”
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 213
kregor
Paris. D’Ortigue, whom Liszt supplied with numerous personal anecdotes and information found nowhere else, wrote that Berlioz was a
vision for the pianist, a figure whose influence by far eclipsed that of
Chopin or Mendelssohn.36 Liszt continued to demonstrate admiration
for his older colleague by publishing his arrangement of the Francsjuges overture in 1845, and a heretofore unknown fragment of an autograph from about 1837 suggests that the arrangement went through
multiple iterations in the 1830s.37 The music of this earlier version (see
Ex. 4) is fully written out, complete with ossia (not reproduced here),
and it diverges in several places from the published edition, most notably
by the inclusion of the “piano” direction at measure 118 and a different
reading of the inner voice at measure 129. To be sure, differences between fragment and print are slight, but the fragment’s reading better
reflects that of Berlioz’s full score, which had been published in 1836.
Liszt may have decided to revise these measures for the sake of clarity:
The frequent hand crossing in this reading can make for a clumsy performance, particularly if the pianist hopes to achieve a rendering even
remotely close to Berlioz’s astonishingly fast tempo direction of = 80.
Like his arrangement of the Symphonie fantastique, Liszt’s Ouverture
du roi Lear fixes a reading of Berlioz’s work that is no longer performed
today. Although there is less documentary evidence, it is reasonable to
assume that the process of its creation unfolded in a manner similar to
that of the Symphonie fantastique. Liszt completed his arrangement by
February 1838 at the latest, and Berlioz continued to revise his orchestral score until the publication of the parts in 1839.38 (Liszt’s arrangement remained unpublished until 1987.)39 And as he had with the
arrangement of the Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz kept close tabs on
36 Joseph d’Ortigue, “Études biographiques. I. Franz Listz [sic],” Gazette musicale de
Paris 2/24 (14 June 1835): 202. “C’est dans le même esprit qu’il étudie les qualités distinctives des jeunes artistes ses amis: Chopin, Hiller, Mendelshon, Dessauer, Urhan,
V. Alkan, Berlioz qui a été pour lui une apparition.”
37 This fragment appears to be the only holograph of Liszt’s Ouverture des Francsjuges arrangement and is found on the underside of a collette on p. 16, systems 2–3 of
D-WRgs, GSA 60/U 57, Liszt’s arrangement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (first version). The paper of the collette matches that of U 57 (see Rena Charnin Mueller, “Liszt’s
‘Tasso’ Sketchbook: Studies in Sources and Revisions” [Ph.D. diss., New York Univ.,
1986], 366; and Jay Michael Rosenblatt, “The Concerto as Crucible: Franz Liszt’s Early
Works for Piano and Orchestra” [Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1995], 452). The terminus
ad quem of the work and the fragment must be 1840, the year in which Liszt published his
Beethoven Seventh arrangement with Tobias Haslinger in Vienna.
38 See Berlioz’s letter of 8 February 1838 to Liszt in C.G.II, 412.
39 The first edition of this transcription does not evaluate the compositional phases
evident in the autograph manuscript. See Hector Berlioz, Overture to King Lear. Transcription for Pianoforte Solo by F. Liszt, ed. Ken Souter (London: Liszt Society Publications,
1987).
213
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 214
the journal of musicology
example 4. Ouverture des francs-juges, earlier version of mm. 116–34,
Liszt arrangement. Underside of collette on D-WRgs, GSA
60/U 57, p. 161
½
ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ
−
Š − −− 116
!
Łý
−−− ŁŁ ýý Ł Ł ý ŁŁ
−
Š
ŁŁ ð
Ł
Ý −− − Ł ð Ł Ł
Ł
− Ł
121
!
214
− Ð
Š − −− Ð ðð ŁŁ
¼
Ł
Ý −− − Ł ¼ ŁŁ ¼
−
126
!
Ð
Ð ð Ł
ð Ł
ðð l ŁŁ ŁŁ
Łl ¼ ŁŁ ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł
Ł Ł
senza
½
ŁŁŁ ððð
ŁŁ ðð ŁŁ ŁŁ ¼
][
piano
Ý −− − l ¼ Łl ¼ Łl m.g.ðð Łl ŁŁ l ¼ Łl ¼
− Ł
Ł
Ł Ł
Ł Ł
Ł Ł
ð ð
ð ðð ð ŁŁ Ł¼Ł ¹ ŁŁ ŁŁ ýý Ł
¼
ð
Ł
Ł ð Ł Ł
Ł
Ł ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł
¼ ¹ Ł Ł ý Ł ÐÐ
ý
Ł
ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł
¼ ðð Ł
ð
Ł ðð Ł ŁŁŁ
Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł ¼ Ł
Ł Ł
agitazione
Ð
Ð
Łý Ł Łý Ł
Łý Ł Łý Ł
ðð ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł
Ł
Ł ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ýý ð ŁŁ ŁŁ ýý Ł Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł ý Ł
ð
ŁŁ ý Ł Ł ýý ŁŁ ðð ðð ð ŁŁ
Ł
Ł
ð
Ł
ð Ł Ł
Ł ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł
Ł Ł
Łý Ð
ðý
− ¼
ŁŁ
Š − −− ŁŁ ¹ ŁŁ ŁŁ ýý ŁŁ Ð ððð ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁŁ ý ŁŁ ŁŁ ýý ŁŁ ð ý ððð
ŁŁ
¼
¼
ðð
ŁŁ
Ł
ðð
Ł
Ł
Ý −− − Ł ð Ł Ł
Ł ¼
Ł Ł
¼
Ł
− Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł ¼ Ł ¼
Ł
Ł
¼ Ł ¼
Ł
Ł
131
!
dolce e legato
ð
ð
1
The E at m. 123, r.h., has been crossed out by Liszt.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 215
kregor
example 5. Ouverture des roi Lear, earlier version of mm. 164–68, Liszt
arrangement. Below collette on D-WRgs, GSA 60/U 43,
p. 102
[
ð
Š Łðð Ł Ł Ł Ł
164
[ Ý]
]
−Ð
ðý
ð
²Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł − Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ² Ł Ł
ðð
rit
² ÐÐ
Ð
[]
¼
ð
²Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł
²Ł Ł Ł Ł
Š
167
Ý
[ ]
Ł Ł Ł ŁŁŁ Ł
ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ
Ł
Ł
ŁŁŁ
2 Bracketed portions are unreadable (due to the wax) and have been extrapolated
based on surrounding material.
Liszt’s work, offering suggestions for improving the reading of the coda
as late as 1853.40
The autograph of the Roi Lear overture, housed in the Goethe- und
Schiller-Archiv in Weimar, resembles the Francs-juges overture in revealing several layers of revisions. Among the numerous changes in the
manuscript, one of the most interesting is an early reading of measures
164–68 (see Ex. 5).41 This passage radically shifts the balance of the
entire work and is particularly noticeable in performance. With its alternation of thumbs to provide momentum in the inner voice, the passage visually parallels those of measure 275ff and 402ff, and all three
passages can be heard as transitional sections: Measures 164–68 begin
the buildup of tension that is released with the more lyrical theme at
measures 179ff; measures 275ff grow in force until the recapitulation at
measure 305; and measures 402ff lead into the march-like theme at
40 In his letter of April 1853 to Liszt (C.G.IV, pp. 314–15), Berlioz disagreed with
the pianist’s decision to substitute three triplet quarter notes for Berlioz’s four eighth
notes.
41 This reading is covered by a collette on page 10, staves 1–2 of D-WRgs, GSA 60/
U 43. Beginning at m. 617, Liszt’s arrangement also contains a substantially different
ending than Berlioz’s published full score. N.B.: All measure numbers refer to Liszt’s
arrangement, which deviates from Berlioz’s score by one measure beginning at m. 85.
215
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 216
the journal of musicology
216
measure 412. Liszt had written in 1836, the very period in which he was
arranging Berlioz’s overtures and Harold Symphony, that “genius is the
majesty of the new, the spirit creating its own form, the feeling of the
infinite manifesting itself in the finite. Now, in which musical works do
we find a higher level of innovative daring, depth of thought, and richness of forms than in Harold and the Episode de la vie d’un artiste?”42 Liszt
made an equally strong case for Berlioz’s musical radicalism in his transcriptions: By reinforcing Berlioz’s formal structures through additional
transitional figures such as those found in the Ouverture du roi Lear
(and, as we shall see, the Symphonie fantastique), Liszt was merely giving
evidence in music for what he had suggested in print.
Even before he had completed his first batch of transcriptions,
Liszt began seeking out a publisher. In December 1837 he contacted
Berlioz with an offer: “If your intention is to publish [my arrangement
of Harold en Italie] and the two overtures, [Friedrich] Hofmeister in
Leipzig is paying me six francs per page for everything I send him. That
would amount to about six hundred francs.”43 After failing to secure a
publisher in Paris, Berlioz told Liszt to “do the negotiations yourself—I
know you have my best interests at heart.”44 Although the publishing
venture ultimately fell through, the close collaboration that the two
artists had shared in private would frequently spill out onto the concert
stage beginning in the second half of the 1830s and continuing well
into the next decade. The Symphonie fantastique, however, would play
only a marginal role.
42 Franz Liszt, Frühe Schriften, ed. Rainer Kleinertz (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel,
2000), 332. “Le génie, c’est la grandeur dans la nouveauté; le génie, c’est la pensée, se
créant sa forme; c’est le sentiment de l’infini se manifestant dans le fini. Or, dans quelles
œuvres musicales trouverons-nous à un plus haut degré la hardiesse de l’innovation, la
profondeur de la pensée et la richesse de formes que dans Harold et l’Episode de la vie d’un
artiste?” The original article, ostensibly written as a review of Berlioz’s 4 December 1836
concert in Paris, was first published as “Concert de M. Berlioz,” in Le Monde on 11 December 1836.
43 Letter of December 1837 from Liszt to Berlioz in C.G.II, pp. 387–88. “Tu recevras d’ici à peu l’arrangement de piano de ta seconde symphonie. Si ton intention était
de la livrer au public (ainsi que les ouvertures des Francs-Juges et du Roi Lear), Hoffmeister
à Leipzig, me paye 6 francs par page pour tout ce que je lui envoie. Ce serait par conséquent environ 600 francs.” In fact, Liszt had been in contact with several publishers, including Hofmeister, in an attempt to publish his own original compositions. See Liszt’s
letter to Ignaz Moscheles of 28 December 1837 in Hans Rudolf Jung, ed., Franz Liszt in
seinen Briefen: eine Auswahl (Berlin: Henschelverg Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1987), 64–66.
44 Letter of 8 February 1838 from Berlioz to Liszt in C.G.II, p. 412. “J’ai parlé à
Richault de la gravure de mes deux ouvertures que tu as réduites pour le piano, il ne s’en
soucie pas; pour la symphonie, si Hoffmeister veut m’en donner un prix raisonnable je
ne demande pas mieux que de la lui laisser publier, ainsi que les deux autres manuscrits
que tu m’as envoyés; fais la négociation toit-même, je te confie mes intérêts absolument.”
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 217
kregor
Content and Reaction
Over the next 45 years, Liszt created two arrangements of the
complete Symphonie fantastique for piano solo as well as an independent
arrangement of the “Marche au supplice” (see Fig. 1). Alongside this
enterprise he reduced sections of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and La
Damnation de Faust, continued to tinker with his early arrangements of
Berlioz’s two overtures, and diligently—if sporadically—worked to perfect his reduction of the Harold Symphony for viola solo and piano.45
(Liszt apparently also transcribed the Carnaval romain overture, but it
was not published and the manuscript is no longer extant.) Many of
these later arrangements were carried out during the final years of
Liszt’s tenure at Weimar, and thus their raison d’être is far removed from
the intense period of creativity and camaraderie that took place between the two composers in the aftermath of the July Revolution.
Perhaps the biggest transformation to come over Liszt between
these two phases of involvement with Berlioz’s music had less to do with
composition and almost everything to do with performance. Indeed,
sandwiched between the early 1830s and the 1850s was Liszt’s Virtuosenzeit, the years in which Liszt rose to become Europe’s top pianist and
showman. He began his concert career in earnest almost immediately
after putting the finishing touches on the Symphonie fantastique transcription, emerging in late 1834 from the relative isolation—and safety
—of salon entertainments to enter the public performing world in
force. To be sure, Liszt had given concerts to large audiences prior to
1834, but the frequency of his appearances and the virtuosity of his
offerings increased dramatically. For some time, as he famously related
to Pierre Wolff, he had “been working his mind and fingers like two
wayward spirits,” and he wanted to demonstrate to the world just how
far he had come as both savant and musician.46 By 1838 he had been
able to catapult himself onto the European main stage with relative
ease, and he maintained his preeminence over a sea of instrumental
and vocal virtuosos for a decade.
But the effects of “Lisztomania,” as Heinrich Heine would call it in
1844, gradually distanced Liszt’s output from his earlier collaborative
pieces. As he assumed the role of the top virtuoso, his musical catalogue
increasingly came to mirror those of his competitors: In the second half
45 The Symphonie fantastique is no exception to Liszt’s usual methods of composing,
revising, and—often—revising and republishing yet again. Mueller succinctly sums up the
difficulty of assessing Liszt’s works based on the often large paper trail that such reworkings create in “Reevaluating the Liszt Chronology: The Case of ‘Anfangs wollt ich fast
verzagen’,” 19th-Century Music 12 (1988): 147.
46 Letter of 2 May 1832, in Liszt, Briefe, 1:6. “Voici quinze jours que mon esprit et
mes doigts travaillent comme deux damnés.”
217
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 218
the journal of musicology
figure 1. Print genealogy of Liszt’s arrangement of the Symphonie fantastique, 1834–77
Nov. 1834:
“Advanced” edition, complete
Schlesinger
Paris (no plate number)
c.1836:
1st edition, complete
Schlesinger
Paris (“M.S.1982”)
“Marche”
Schlesinger
Paris (“M.S.1982”)
early 1838:
218
Complete
Trentsensky and Vieweg
Vienna (“T.etV.2824”)
“Un bal”
Schlesinger
Paris (“M.S.1982”)
“Marche”
Schlesinger
Berlin (“S.2224”)
c.1842:
“Un bal”
Schlesinger
Berlin (“S.2677.A”)
early 1843: “Marche” [arr. Mockwitz]
Schlesinger
Berlin (“S.2817”)
1843/44:
1866:
1877:
Complete
A. O. Witzendorf
Vienna (“A.O.W.2824”)
KEY:
Reprint
“Marche” [rev. Liszt]
J. Rieter-Biedermann
Leipzig & Winterthur (“466”)
New engraving
New edition
2nd edition, complete
Constantin Sander
Leipzig (“F.E.C.L.2893”)
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 219
kregor
of the 1830s, operatic fantasies and shorter pieces based on dance forms
would eclipse his orchestral reductions. His concert programs shrank in
variety, and earlier pieces like his Symphonie fantastique, the exploratory
Apparitions, or the one-movement Harmonies poétiques et religieuses were
heard less frequently, if at all. With such pressure to please his audience,
by what means could Liszt transport his intimate association with Berlioz
of the last half decade onto the concert stage? How could he mediate
the inherently collaborative qualities of the Symphonie fantastique?
Even though Liszt strove to make his arrangements playable, it was
quite rare that one of his Berlioz partitions was mounted in the concert
hall. The ubiquity of Hallé’s reminiscence gives the impression that the
Symphonie fantastique transcription formed a staple of Liszt’s concert
repertoire. And yet, although a complete performance calendar of Liszt’s
concert years is far from complete, current data suggest that Liszt performed the Symphonie fantastique only four times in public.47 (Liszt
never publicly performed the overtures.) And as Table 1 demonstrates,
three out of the four performances were given in Paris, to an audience
that already would have been intimately familiar with Berlioz’s original.
Liszt’s performance of two movements of the work at Vienna on 25 May
1838 for his Abschiedskonzert effectively inaugurated his years as an
independent virtuoso artist, while simultaneously offering a symbolic
farewell to Berlioz and the heady artistic relationship from which they
both had profited for several years.
In the fall of 1834, Liszt was still very much artistically allied with—
indeed, dependent on—Berlioz. The successes and failures of one often
had a corresponding impact on the other. Liszt’s Parisian rise necessitated a trifecta of support in the publishing community, the press, and
the concert hall. Whereas the pianist constantly negotiated—sometimes
fought—with publishers for exposure in print, Berlioz was able to supply both with an accommodating voice in the press and space on the
concert stage, even if on more than one occasion he was forced to conceal his true feelings from the public.48 The older colleague’s review
of the pianist’s rendition of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” sonata on
47 Owing to their number, Liszt’s concerts have been investigated geographically.
See Geraldine Keeling, “Liszt’s Appearances in Parisian Concerts, 1824–1844,” The Liszt
Society Journal 11 (1986): 22–34, and 12 (1987): 8–22; Malou Haine, “La première
tournée de concerts de Franz Liszt en Belgique en 1841,” Revue belge de Musicologie 56
(2002): 241–78; Michael Saffle, Liszt in Germany, 1840–1845: A Study in Sources, Documents, and the History of Reception (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1994); Luciano Chiappari,
Liszt a Como e Milano (Ospedaletto: Pacini, 1997). Walker (Liszt: The Virtuoso Years) provides a succinct summary of Liszt’s concert activities in tabular form on pp. 292–95.
48 In particular, Liszt had problems convincing Maurice Schlesinger, the publisher
of the Symphonie fantastique, of his abilities as composer. See Anik Devriès, “Un éditeur de
musique ‘à la tête ardente,’ Maurice Schlesinger,” Fontes Artis Musicae 27 (1980): 125–36.
219
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 220
the journal of musicology
TABLE 1
Liszt’s public performances of his arrangement
of the Symphonie fantastique
Date & Location
220
Movement(s)
performed
Notes
28 December 1834
Paris
Salle du Conservatoire
II, IV
Berlioz’s complete Symphonie
fantastique preceded Liszt’s arrangements; Harold Symphony closed the
concert; orchestra conducted by
Narcisse Girard
18 December 1836
Paris
Salle du Conservatoire
II, IV
“Concert donné par MM. Listz [sic]
et Berlioz,” including Liszt’s Grande
fantaisie symphonique and Berlioz’s
Harold Symphony; orchestra conducted by Berlioz
25 May 1838
Vienna
Saale der Gesellschaft
der Musikfreunde
II, IV
“Abschiedskonzert,” with Liszt’s two
“Fragments de la Symphonie fantastique de Berlioz” preceding three
Liszt/Schubert song arrangements
4 May 1844
Paris
Théâtre-Italien
II
Berlioz’s Harold Symphony and overtures to Carnaval romain and Francsjuges performed; Liszt’s arrangement
immediately followed an orchestral
performance of “Le Bal”; orchestra
conducted by Berlioz
12 June 1836 in Paris offers a pristine example of Berlioz’s overlooking
the more excessive elements of Liszt’s showmanship while highlighting
his fidelity to the text.49 As the Thalberg-Liszt debate was heating up in
Paris in January and February 1837, and Liszt attempted in vain to placate the numerous factions within the Parisian beau monde, Berlioz once
again defended his friend with the pen against the pianist’s more vocal
naysayers. The roles would be largely reversed 20 years later in Weimar.
A more enduring component of their success was their rapport on
the concert stage. Particularly in the 1830s, Liszt frequently took part
49 See Katherine Kolb Reeve, “Primal Scenes: Smithson, Pleyel, and Liszt in the Eyes
of Berlioz,” 19th-Century Music 18 (1995): 226–28. Reeve suggests that Berlioz was able to
write a review in good conscience because his nose was buried in the music, thus allowing
him to turn a blind eye to the more unpalatable elements of Liszt’s performing style.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 221
kregor
in concerts either organized by Berlioz or containing several compositions by his older colleague. And while the cash-strapped Berlioz often
enlisted Liszt to appear in his concerts, this was hardly unwelcome
exploitation—Liszt made use of the publicity to bolster his own profile
as composer, pianist, and, as soon followed, writer and critic. Moreover,
the mixture of Liszt’s piano works and Berlioz’s orchestral creations
offered Parisian audiences a concert-going experience that was second
to none.
Indeed, the triumphs of these joint concerts effectively fused
Berlioz and Liszt into one performing entity. They were often mentioned in the same breath: “Liszt and Berlioz,” wrote Joseph d’Ortigue,
“are two names that march to the same tune—one for the piano, the
other for the orchestra.”50 The ever caustic Heinrich Heine genuinely
considered their joint concerts to be Paris’s most impressive and worthwhile offering of the season, in no small part because “Liszt is the man
who relates most closely to Berlioz and knows best how to perform his
music.”51 Although d’Ortigue and Heine frequently moved in the same
social circles as Liszt and Berlioz, and thus were more privy to details of
their private lives, the camaraderie between the two artists was hardly
lost on the typical reviewer or concertgoer.
The premiere of portions of the Symphonie fantastique on 28 December 1834 in Paris offered no exception. An anonymous reviewer recalled for readers of the journal L’Artiste that
The last concert was distinguished by two pieces played by Liszt. The
first was a piano duo performed by Liszt with Mlle Vial. This composition, remarkable for its stylistic elegance, its tender and graceful
melody, was delivered with the utmost perfection. Next came the
“Ball” and the “March to the scaffold.” Liszt proved just how well he
grasps all of the ideas of his friend Berlioz. Never have you witnessed
an execution more admirable in its facility, sweetness, passion, and
drive. He and his magic fingers took turns expressing the gentle and
tender emotions of the “Ball” and the brilliant, powerful, and gloomy
impressions of the “March.” It would be impossible to describe the
enthusiasm that Liszt generated.52
50 Quoted in Joseph-Marc Bailbé, “Liszt et Berlioz: Une poétique du voyage,” La Revue musicale 405–407 (1987): 168. “Liszt et Berlioz, deux noms qui marchent ensemble.
L’un a pour instument le piano, l’autre l’orchestre.” D’Ortigue expands upon this observation in his review of the Liszt-Berlioz concerts of 1836 in Écrits sur la Musique, 1827–
1846, ed. Sylvia L’Écuyer (Paris: Société française de Musicologie, 2003), 516.
51 Quoted in Liszt, An Artist’s Journey, ed. Suttoni, 220. Reports like Heine’s were instrumental in allowing for the print distribution of the Symphonie fantastique partition
abroad.
52 The original orthography of the article has been retained. Anonymous, “Concert
de Berlioz. Listz,” L’Artiste 8 (1834): 264. “Le dernier concert a été signalé par deux
221
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 222
the journal of musicology
222
Other reviewers, including Berlioz himself, emphasized the overwhelmingly frenzied response that Liszt’s rendition of the second movement generated in the hall that day.53 Even if Liszt overplayed his role
as sympathetic pianist somewhat—Berlioz reported that Liszt, “overtaken with emotion [from the applause], seemed for a moment unable
to continue”—he nevertheless designed several moments within “Un
bal” that would focus audience attention on him and his playing while
simultaneously throwing Berlioz’s most important musical ideas into relief. And perhaps owing to the collaborative elements thus featured,
Liszt would offer his public the second movement more than any other
in the work’s short performance career.
Unfortunately, the extant documentary evidence from contemporary periodicals offers few avenues for productive analytic inquiry of
the Symphonie fantastique, save that Liszt’s performances met with wildly
enthusiastic responses, especially in Paris. But what did Liszt’s arrangement sound and look like on stage, and how could the arranger promote Berlioz’s music when he was ostensibly the center of the show?
Lawrence Kramer’s tersely cogent observation that “Liszt’s piano music
. . . requires a Lisztian virtuoso, which is not far from requiring the reanimation of Liszt himself ” offers a tantalizing challenge to recreate his
performance of the Symphonie fantastique.54 More recently, Carolyn
Abbate has called for a renewed consideration of what she calls the
“drastic” side of music, the performative element that “entails seeking a
practice that at its most radical allows an actual live performance (and
not a recording, even of a live performance) to become an object of
absorption.”55 There is also the pronounced element of physicality inherent in Abbate’s theory that thrives on the notion of “desperation
and peril”—and for many, this is the main attraction of a live performance. While it is obviously impossible to recreate Liszt’s performances
in toto, however, we can at least examine his musical productions along
morceaux exécutés par Listz. Le premier était un duo de piano que Listz a exécuté avec
Mlle Vial. Cette composition, remarquable par l’élégance de style, par une mélodie tendre et gracieuse, a été rendue avec une délicieuse perfection. Puis sont venus le Bal et la
Marche du supplice. Listz a prouvé combien il sait comprendre toutes les idées de son
ami Berlioz. Jamais vous n’avez vu exécution plus admirable par la facilité, la suavité, la
passion, l’entraînement. Listz sait rendre tour à tour, avec la même magie de doigté, les
émotions de douceur, de tendresse, de rêverie du Bal, et les impressions éclatantes, fortes
et sombres de la Marche. Il serait impossible de décrire l’enthousiasme excité par Listz.”
53 See Berlioz’s review in Le Rénovateur (5 January 1835; repr. in Hector Berlioz, Critique musicale, ed. H. Robert Cohen and Yves Gérard [Paris: Editions Buchet/Chastel,
1996–], 2:3–4); and two anonymous reviews in Le Pianiste 2/5 (5 January 1835): 42, and
the Gazette musicale de Paris 2/2 (11 January 1835): 15.
54 Lawrence Kramer, “Franz Liszt and the Virtuoso Public Sphere: Sight and Sound
in the Rise of Mass Entertainment,” in Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2002), 92.
55 Carolyn Abbate, “Music—Drastic or Gnostic?” Critical Inquiry 30 (Spring 2004):
506.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 223
kregor
the similar lines of performance risk and audience spectacle. The second movement of the Symphonie fantastique arrangement offers some of
the clearest examples of Liszt’s walking the line between transcription
and composition, as he creates Lisztian moments unique from their
source.
The above-cited concert reviews convey a sense of the electricity
that Liszt brought to the stage, but they are insufficient in documenting
how his unique performance practice came into being during the first
half of the early 1830s. One of the most important sources relating to
his performance aesthetic to come from this period is a diary of instructions maintained by Auguste Boissier that Liszt imparted to his young
student and Auguste’s daughter Valérie in 1832. Auguste frequently
captured Liszt in the throes of a pianistic revelation: On 20 March
1832 “he was entranced by Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture which had
been performed on Sunday in the Conservatoire. . . . For us he played
some fragments of this overture in a striking manner—an impetuous,
jerky chord followed by a kind of hopelessness, almost a kind of musical
insanity. Then comes a phrase of angelic song that seemed to fall from
the heavens.”56 Two months earlier she had witnessed Liszt work
through themes from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell Overture in a similarly
chaotic fashion.57 All the expected hyperbole notwithstanding, the
writer does illuminate Liszt’s fascination with exploiting contrasts—
in particular, staggering more visually stunning passages with thematically static moments. In Liszt’s rendition Boissier sees the first section of
Beethoven’s overture and hears the second. The juxtaposition is not
only thematic, but highly visual—consider how Boissier, in providing
musical memory aides in her diary, was unable to characterize Liszt’s
fragmented first theme physically but could easily find an image for
the second. And like his spontaneous arrangements of Beethoven’s or
Rossini’s overtures, the second movement of the Symphonie fantastique
arrangement telescopes the aural and visual into an experience worthy
of a Liszt-Berlioz concert.58
56 Auguste Boissier, Liszt Pédagogue: Leçons de piano données pas Liszt à Mademoiselle
Valérie Boissier à Paris en 1832 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1927), 86. “Il avait été ravi de
l’ouverture de Coriolan de Beethoven qu’on avait jouée dimanche au Conservatoire et
qu’il regarde comme une des œuvres les plus grandes, les plus complètes, les plus admirables qui soient sorties du cerveau gigantesque de Beethoven. Il nous a joué quelques
lambeaux de cette ouverture d’une manière saisissante; c’est un accord brusque, quelque
chose de heurté, suivi d’une sorte de désespoir, de démence musicale. Puis c’est une
phrase de chant angélique qui semble tomber du ciel.”
57 Boissier, Liszt Pédagogue, 25–26.
58 Liszt’s arrangement of Beethoven’s Coriolan overture has not survived, but he
listed it alongside arrangements of the Egmont and Zauberflöte overtures in his Programme
général des morceaux exécutés par F. Liszt à ses concerts de 1838 à 1848, which Mueller has rigorously examined in her “Liszt’s Catalogues and Inventories of His Music,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (1992): 231–50.
223
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 224
the journal of musicology
224
The first half of the 1830s were experimental times for Liszt notationally, and he extended the range of acceptable expressive marks with
the goal of committing as much of his performance style to paper as
possible. In pieces like the first Apparition from 1834, he developed a
series of lines and boxes to designate grades of ritardandos and accelerandos, respectively. And sections of the one-movement Harmonies
poétiques et religieuses from the same year abandon time signatures entirely; Liszt instead writes beat divisions directly under each note in an
effort to indicate its duration precisely. These and other notational aids
allowed Liszt to document his creations while losing only a modicum of
nuance during the transferal process. It is not difficult to imagine how
these performance markings could help better preserve Liszt’s performances of Beethoven or Rossini for the Boissier family. It is also hardly
coincidental that Liszt’s efforts in notating music accurately overlap in
many ways with his stated goals of reproducing Berlioz’s first symphony
for the piano.
Liszt often augmented these expressive marks with equally exact
prose instructions to the performer, which sought to capture the nuances of what Boissier, Berlioz, and even Hallé could only approximate.
In Example 3, the pianist is told to make the idée fixe “molto pronunziato” and later “cantando sempre.” The accompaniment is to be played
“lamentoso,” “dolce sospirando,” and finally “perdendendo” [sic]. Throughout the entire passage, we are told to “gardez toujours la pedale douce.”
(Berlioz’s score transmits a lone “espressivo” direction to the flute and
oboe soloists during this passage.) The abundance of markings in this passage offers the performer little latitude for independent interpretation.
At least one reviewer thought Liszt’s marginal notes to be excessive.
Their ubiquity in the partition, the anonymous critic complained, raised
the level of passion and violence so high that the listener was robbed of
the emotional ups and downs that make a composition compelling:
The little Italian words . . . are in this piece of such a strange type that
everyone will think them mechanical. Instead of the usual “Andante,
Adagio, Allegro,” one reads “Feroce.” Anytime a word is given in Italian, it
always has something to do with ferocity. What a beginning! But that
is not all! On the third page one reads “il più forte possibile,” then two
systems later “marcatissimo”; a bit further down “sempre F.F.F.” May these
three fs be observed! Finally, instead of “con amore,” one finds “sempre
forte ed energico.” And instead of “con espressione,” one astoundingly
reads “con furore.” With the aid of such detailed performance instructions, the workout needed just to practice this piece could serve as a
healthy substitute for horse-riding in winter.59
59 Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger 9/12 (1837): 46. “Berlioz hat seinen schönen
von Liszt für das Clavier eingerichteten ‘Marsch nach der Richtstatt’ (marche du supplice)
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 225
kregor
Liszt had indeed intended his reading of the Symphonie fantastique to astound, but its novel approach to blending reproduced music and recreated performance also helped guide the listener or reader through
the musical text itself. Critics who saw Liszt as just another robotic
virtuoso—immune to emotion or imagination—might have sympathized with the overwhelmed Austrian reviewer and easily dismissed this
component of Liszt’s transcription.60 But if the performance marks
looked foreign on the page, in the hands of an able performer they
could come alive. The material that Liszt adds to his partition serves to
mediate between performer and composer. Indeed, the physical gestures required to perform, say, the second movement combine with
Berlioz’s compositional elements in a way that creates several gripping
on-stage moments.
These gestures come at surprising junctures and often serve to prepare the listener for Berlioz’s themes. Consider Example 6 from the
second movement. These measures link the first statement of the idée
fixe (recall Ex. 3) and the third appearance of the waltz theme in the
lower strings. The rhythms, textures, and register remain static, and
there is little in terms of melody or unexpected harmony. But while this
passage may offer the listener little in the way of gripping musical material, it constitutes one of the most visually exciting moments of the entire movement: With the register high, the texture plain, and the pianist playing pianissimo without the pedals to smooth over moments of
spotty execution, wrong notes stand out—the audience will notice, for
instance, if the pianist misses the high B in measure 163. In his piano
herausgegeben. Die kleinen italienischen Wörter, welche in den musikalischen Werken
gemeiniglich den Tact und den Ausdruck bezeichnen, sind in diesem Stücke von so
besonderer Art, daß sie Jedermann unwillkührlich auffallen. So liest man darin anstatt
der üblichen Worte: ‘Andante, Adagio, Allegro,’ den Ausdruck: ‘feroce.’ Wenn das Wort auch
italienisch gegeben ist, so deutet es doch immer auf Ferocität hin. Ein lieblicher Anfang!
Dieß ist aber nicht Alles! Auf der dritten Seite liest man ‘il più forte possibile’ dann zwey
Zeilen tiefer ‘marcatissimo’, etwas weiter ‘sempre F.F.F.’ drey f, man merke dieses Zeichen;
endlich anstatt ‘con amore,’ findet man ‘sempre forte ed energico’ und anstatt ‘con espressione’
liesst man bestürzt ‘con furore’. Nach diesen so bestimmten Bezeichnungen könnte selbst
im Winter die Einstudierung jenes Stücks eine gesunde die Bewegung zu Pferde mit
Vortheil ersetzende Übung abgeben.”
60 It was in the 1830s that criticism of the virtuoso started to become widespread. By
the 1840s, particularly in Germany, a fair number of tracts leveled against the histrionic
performer had appeared. An overview of this phenomenon can be found in Dana Gooley, “The Battle Against Instrumental Virtuosity in the Early Nineteenth Century,” in
Franz Liszt and His World, ed. Dana Gooley and Christopher H. Gibbs (New Haven: Yale
Univ. Press, 2006), 75–111. Gabriele Brandstetter has recently offered a nuanced view of
the 19th-century virtuoso as essentially a figure of the theater; that is, a performer driven
by a rhetoric that blends the mechanic and poetic in a way that constantly teeters on the
edge of inauthenticity. See her “Die Szene des Virtuosen: Zu einem Topos von Theatralität,” Hofmannsthal-Jahrbuch 10 (2002): 213–43.
225
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 226
the journal of musicology
example 6. Symphonie fantastique, “Un bal,” mm. 163–70, Liszt
arrangement
² ² ¦− ŁŁ
Š ² 4/ 163
!
²²
Š ² 4/ ¦−ŁŁl
\\
² ² Ło
Š ² 167
!
− Łl
− Łl
lŁ
l
Łl ¾ −Łl − Ł
¾ −Łl
\\ scherzando con grazia
¾ ¦−ŁŁ ŁŁ ¾ ¹
ŁŁ ŁŁ ¾ ¹
l l
l l
l
¾ ¦ Łl ¦ Ł
¦ Łl
Ło
¾ Łl
Łl
smorzando
²²
Š ² ¾ ¦ ŁŁ ŁŁ ¾ ¹
Łl Łl
Łl
Ło
Łl
¾ Łl
Łl
Łl
Łl
diminuendo
¾ Ł Ł ¾ ¹
¦ ŁŁl ŁŁl
l
¾ ² Łl ² Ł
² Łl
sempre
¾ ²Ł
ŁŁ
l
ŁŁ ¾ ¹
Łl
² Łl Łl ¦ Łl Łl l l l
l
¾ ²Ł Ł Ł ¦ Ł Ł ¾ Ł Ł Ł
straccinato
¾ ² ŁŁ ŁŁ ¾ ¹
² ŁŁl ŁŁl
¾ ¦ ŁŁ ŁŁ ¾ ¹
¦ ² ŁlŁ ŁlŁ
¾ Ł Ł ¾ ¹
¦ ŁŁl ŁŁl
226
music Liszt normally facilitates the navigation of octaves through several registers with four 16th notes to be played by an alternation of
the thumb and little finger (ascending: 1-5-1-5; descending: 5-1-5-1), as
he does in the fugato section of the fifth movement (see Ex. 7).61 Such
technical alleviations are not to be found in the second movement,
however, and Liszt’s detailed notation leaves little room to finesse the
passage. The pianist should not take the fourth 16th note of each measure with the left hand—to do so would destroy the spectacle of the moment, diminishing the careful plan that Liszt has crafted for the movement as a whole.
Strictly speaking, the music contained in these passages belongs
to Berlioz, and the Lisztian moments hardly infringe on Berlioz’s most
attention-grabbing compositional solutions. Indeed, it is noteworthy
that the examples cited above function as transitional passages within
the movement’s formal plan. The most technically straightforward moments in “Un bal” occur during the appearances of the waltz melody
and the idée fixe. In short, Liszt has not randomly chosen his moments
to show off; rather, he has selected musical targets that neither over61 See also the fourth movement, m. 130, of Schlesinger’s 1834 edition. When Liszt
revised this movement in the 1860s, he added several more of these figures. See the
Rieter-Biedermann edition of “Marche au Supplice de la Sinfonie fantastique (Episode
de la Vie d’un Artiste),” m. 122ff. The Stichvorlage of this edition is located in US-Wc in a
folder of assorted Liszt-Berlioz arrangements.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 227
kregor
example 7. Symphonie fantastique, “Songe d’un nuit du sabbat,” mm.
293–96, Liszt arrangement
293
!
Š 42
Ý2
4
Łp
² Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ
² ŁŁ Ł Ł
Ł
Ł
Ło Ł
Ł
Ł Ł
o
ŁŁ
ŁŁ
Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł ² Ł Ł
ŁŁ Ł
Ł ²Ł
o
Ł ² Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ
Łu ² Łu Łu Ł
u
o o
ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ
Ł Ł
Ło ² Ł
Ł Ł
8
o
o
ŁŁ
o
Ł
295 Ł
Ł Ł Ł ² Ł ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ
ŁŁ ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł Ł ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł
Ł Ł
Ł Ł
Š Ł Ł Ł
Ł
Ł
Ł
Ło Ło ² Ło ² Ło
Ło Ło Ło Ło
ÝŁ
Ł
Ł Ł ²Ł ²Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł
^[
^[
va
!
227
shadow the ingenuity of Berlioz’s thematic content nor threaten the integrity of his overall conception of the movement. Thus a successful live
performance will expose a persistent tug-of-war between composer and
performer by capitalizing on the visual dissonance between thematically important moments and transitional ones. In fact, this tension between Berlioz’s music and Liszt’s spectacle is resolved only in the coda
(see Ex. 8), where the merger is heard and seen in a very demonstrative
way: Berlioz’s apoplectic waltz rattles around in the middle register
while Liszt’s left hand, springing from one octave to another and encasing the main melody, acts as ersatz conductor for the audience. The
collaboration between Berlioz and Liszt that took place behind closed
doors during the genesis of the Symphonie fantastique arrangement suddenly takes on a life of its own on the concert stage.
Liszt’s detailed—at times almost obsessive—engagement with transitions is not surprising, for he would infuse these formal areas with
spectacle time and again in his opera fantasies. Indeed, some of the most
original and gestural moments in, say, the Réminiscences de Don Juan, ostensibly take place in the most formally unassuming sections.62 Moreover, many works by Liszt—both original and arranged—that exist in
62 A detailed, programmatic analysis of this work can be found in Charles Rosen,
The Romantic Generation (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), 528–40.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 228
the journal of musicology
example 8. Symphonie fantastique, “Un bal,” mm. 346–50, Liszt
arrangement
!
228
o
346
Ł
molto
energico
Ł Ł Ł ² Ł Ł ² Ł ¦ ŁŁŁ Ł
²²² /
Š 4 ŁŁŁ Ł Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁŁ ² Ł Ł ² Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁŁŁ
^[ cono fuoco ^[o ŁŁo
²
Ý ²² / o ¾ ŁŁ ¾ ¾ ŁŁ ¾ ¾ ¾
ŁŁ
4 ŁŁŁ
Ł
~
~
ŁŁŁ
Ł
ŁŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁŁ
Ł
^[
Ł
ŁŁ ¾ Łu ¾
ŁŁu
~
ŁŁ
ŁŁ × Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁ × Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁ ² Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
ŁŁ ² Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł
8va
ŁŁo
ŁŁo ŁŁ
o
o
Ł
¾ ŁŁ ¾ ¾ ¾ ŁŁŁ ¾ ¾ Š ¾
Ł
Ł
~
~
multiple versions often betray more extensive reconsiderations of transitional passages than other sections. For instance, one of the few differences between Liszt’s 1867 solo piano arrangement of Richard Wagner’s Isolden’s Liebes-Tod and its second edition eight years later is shown
in Example 9. The first version of this measure prepares a grandiose
rendition of the main theme by outlining the dominant seventh chord
in the left hand while mimicking high string tremolos in the right hand
(Ex. 9a). The revision of 1875 gives greater weight to the dominant by
featuring a demonstrative, written-out octave turn above a sweeping
left-hand octave arpeggio (Ex. 9b). Liszt’s second solution gives the
transition a trajectory that calls attention to a formidable pianistic technique while making the arrival of Wagner’s main theme even more
momentous.
Distinctions between composer and performer are nowhere better
maintained than in the second movement of the Symphonie fantastique
arrangement. “Un bal” would have offered audiences Berlioz’s compositional profile without denying them Liszt’s charismatic stage presence.
Performance of the first, third, and fifth movements yields fewer visual
moments like those encountered in the second; even the fourth movement, despite the sheer amount of volume required for a convincing
performance, keeps the pianist regularly tethered to the keyboard. If
Liszt was looking to bring his audiences the best of both worlds, the second movement was the most sensible one. Performances of the work,
although rare during the 1830s and 40s, succeeded in showcasing an
idealized balance between the two artists. Liszt acted as a sort of onstage tour guide to Berlioz’s first symphony, his calculated gestures at
the piano illustrating the musical highpoints along the way.
It is difficult to sustain a similar collaborative argument with other
Liszt creations that were inspired by Berlioz’s compositions. The tran-
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 229
kregor
example 9a. Isolden’s Liebes-Tod, first version (1867), m. 47, Liszt
arrangement
Łn
ŁŁp Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁ Ł ŁŁl × ŁŁn
¦
Ł
ײ ŁŁŁ
²
Ł
²
×
Ł
Ł
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł × ŁŁ
² ŁŁ × ŁŁ ² ŁŁŁ ŁŁ Ł Ł
²Ł Ł
rinforzando
Ý ²²²² Łl
²
Łl
Ł
¦Ł
Łl
Ł
Ł
Ł
¦Ł
Ł
Ł
ŁŁŁ
²²
Š ² ²² 47
!
Łl
Ł
example 9b. Isolden’s Liebes-Tod, second version (1875), m. 47, Liszt
arrangement
n
²²²² ײ ŁŁŁ
ŁŁŁ ¦ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ŁŁŁ ²× ŁŁŁl
²
Ł
×
Ł
Ł
Ł
²
Ł
Ł
² Ł × Ł ² ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł Ł
Š
ף
² ŁŁ ŁŁ Ł
rinforzando
Ł Ł Ł ² ŁŁl
Ł
Ý ²²²² Ł
Ł
Ł Ł ²Ł
²
Ł
¦Ł
Ł Ł ŁŁ Ł Ł Ł Ł
¦Ł
Ł
Ł Ł
47
!
3
~
~
3
3
3
3
ŁŁl
ŁŁ
ŁŁl
Ł
3
scriptions of the Ouverture des francs-juges and Ouverture du roi Lear, redolent as they are of a concerted effort by the two artists to promote one
another, remained unplayed publicly. To be sure, Liszt did exhibit his
massive Grande fantaisie symphonique to the Parisian public on more than
one occasion during the 1830s. This single-movement composition for
piano and orchestra, begun as Liszt was wrapping up work on the Symphonie fantastique arrangement, is based on two of the more successful
movements from Berlioz’s Le retour à la vie (revived in amended form at
Weimar in 1855 under the title Lélio), the sequel to the Symphonie fantastique.63 The scoring of soloist versus orchestra recalls the opposition
posed by Hallé in his recollection: Even before a note sounds the audience is already predisposed to hear Liszt over Berlioz. And that is exactly what happened. Reviewers frequently commented on the work’s
63 On the short-lived history of the Grande fantaisie symphonique, see Rosenblatt, “The
Concerto as Crucible,” 248–89.
229
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 230
the journal of musicology
230
success as an independent composition. One critic for the Gazette musicale noted that “above all it is the manner in which he treats the melody
. . . that Mr. Liszt should be recognized as one of the most skillful harmonists of our day.”64
Assessments such as these must have encouraged the pianist to
hone his compositional profile, perhaps at the expense of his image as
a virtuoso; and the feeling was expressed, even among Liszt’s supporters, that his older works no longer did full justice to his new artistic persona.65 Indeed, with the exception of the Beethoven symphony arrangements, the next major works to flow from Liszt’s pen were entirely
original: a slew of opera fantasies in 1835/36 followed by the Vingtquatre grandes études and Album d’un voyageur in 1837. Later that year he
began to seek out publishers for these works. Even his infamous critique
of Thalberg’s works from January 1837—the review that caused such a
stir among Paris’s beau monde—suggests the level at which Liszt considered himself a composer. Indeed, by the time he arrived in Vienna on
10 April 1838, his journeyman days were well behind him. Although
Liszt had arrived in the city under the philanthropic banner of raising
money for the Hungarians inundated by the March flooding of the
Danube, he had really come to build a name for himself on the foundation of his inimitable piano technique and burgeoning compositional
portfolio. He had, in short, come to conquer: “My arrival has been announced in all the journals,” he wrote to d’Agoult, “and unless I am
truly deceiving myself . . . I will make an immense effect.”66 The eight
concerts he presented included the only time that the pianist would
perform the Symphonie fantastique outside of Paris.
How did Liszt’s Viennese performance of the Symphonie fantastique
compare with the Parisian Liszt-Berlioz concert, where the pair could
tailor it according to their intimate knowledge of the audience? It is
precisely Liszt’s invariable interest in his on-stage reception that ac64 Anonymous, “Concerts de la semaine,” Gazette musicale de Paris 2 (12 April 1835):
130. “C’est à la manière dont il a traité la mélodie du pêcheur surtout, que M. Listz s’est
fait reconnâitre pour un des plus habiles harmonistes de l’époque.”
65 D’Ortigue wrote in a 24 July 1836 article for La Quotidienne that “Les anciennes
compositions de M. Liszt, bien inférieures à celles qu’il nous a fait entendre dans cette
dernière séance, révélaient néanmoins, autant que le caractère de son exécution, autant
que les sympathies bien connues de son âme, une propension vers le mysticisme, vers l’inspiration biblique, vers les idées contemplatives et religieuses.” See d’Ortigue, Écrits sur la
Musique, 505.
66 Liszt/d’Agoult, 12 April 1838, p. 311. “Mon arrivée est annoncée dans tous les
journaux et si je ne me fais des illusions grosses comme les poings de Mallefille, je produirai un immense effet.” A comprehensive overview of Liszt’s activities in Vienna in the
spring of 1838 can be found in Christopher H. Gibbs, “ ‘Just Two Words. Enormous Success’: Liszt’s 1838 Vienna Concerts,” in Franz Liszt and His World, ed. Dana Gooley and
Christopher H. Gibbs (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2006), 167–230.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 231
kregor
counts for the near silence the work received outside of Paris. In 1838,
the Symphonie fantastique, which never had been performed outside
Paris either in symphonic or arranged form, took a back seat to Liszt’s
most lucrative creations: piano solo arrangements of Schubert’s lieder.
Liszt premiered his arrangements of Schubert’s “Ständchen” and “Lob
der Thränen” on 23 April 1838, and at every subsequent public concert in Vienna that season he either accompanied singers or performed
his arrangements of Schubert’s lieder on the piano. Liszt had found the
Viennese analogue to Berlioz in Schubert, and he used this circumstance to full advantage. Not even Beethoven was represented on stage
as frequently as Schubert.
At the 25 May Abschiedskonzert, the second and fourth movements
of the Symphonie fantastique shared the bill with Rossini’s Guillaume Tell
overture, two songs by the local Viennese composer Johann Vesque von
Püttlingen, for which Liszt provided the accompaniment, Liszt’s Rondeau fantastique, and—as closer—three Schubert arrangements: “Sey
mir gegrüsst,” “Erlkönig,” and “Die Post.” His Grande Valse di bravura
served as the encore.67 Heinrich Adami, critic for the Allgemeine Theaterzeitung, glossed over Berlioz’s work, focusing instead—as he had in
his previous reviews—on the enthusiasm generated by Liszt’s performance of “Erlkönig” and the Grande Valse.68 And Eduard Hanslick, although not in attendance that day, recalled years later that “at his
farewell concert Liszt played fragments from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a laudable homage to his brilliant friend, who at the time was still
entirely unknown in Vienna. The work, however, failed to resonate with
the audience.”69 Although Liszt would later thank the Viennese publicly for being the most accommodating audience he had ever met, his
tribute may be read as a veiled admission that their reception of the
Symphonie fantastique betrayed the ultimate mismatch between that audience’s tastes and those of the French capital.
67 According to the records of the publisher Tobias Haslinger—Liszt’s concert
organizer in Vienna—920 tickets were sold for the Abschiedskonzert, with a total intake of
2127.20 fl. Further financial details of this concert can be found in Haslinger’s
“Geschäftliche Papiere-Abrechnung und Belege über das 7. Konzert (1838),” located in
D-WRgs, GSA 59/133,8. The playbill is reproduced in Gibbs, “Liszt’s 1838 Vienna Concerts,” 210.
68 Heinrich Adami, “Letztes Concert des Herrn Franz Lißt,” Allgemeine TheaterZeitung (28 May 1838): 470. Quoted in Dezső Legány, Franz Liszt: Unbekannte Presse und
Briefe aus Wien 1822–1886 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1984), 49. “Ich sage nur, daß sich das Publikum schon von der ersten Nummer an in Aufregung befand, und daß sich bei dem Vortrage des ‘Erlkönig’ und des Bravourwalzers der Enthusiasmus bis zu einem Grade
steigerte, wie ich es noch nie in einem Concerte erlebte.”
69 Eduard Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1869–70), 1:336. “In seinem Abschieds-Concerte spielte Lißt Fragmente aus
Berlioz’ ‘Sinfonie fantastique’, eine lobenswerthe Huldigung für seinen damals in Wien
noch gänzlich ungekannten genialen Freund, die aber hier keinen Anklang fand.”
231
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 232
the journal of musicology
232
Liszt was fighting an uphill battle by attempting to compete with
Schubert on his home turf, and Hanslick’s eulogy for the Symphonie
fantastique further demonstrates that almost everything about the work
went against the artistic predilections of the Viennese. Most importantly, the programmatic elements were seen as too French. The ostensibly exotic nature of compositions with extramusical, literary descriptions or programs often came under fire from conservative Viennese
critics who declared the superiority of symphonic music and other absolute forms;70 they also elicited suspicion from the national censors.71
(It is noteworthy that the edition of the Symphonie fantastique arrangement published in Vienna around this time lacked Berlioz’s program
entirely.) Nor was the problem of alleged gallicism limited to Vienna—
in 1835 Schumann had written of the program that “all of Germany
gladly returns it to Berlioz: Such signposts always smack of something
unworthy and pretentious!”72 Liszt’s Schubert arrangements neither
forced a program nor offered a limited interpretation of the original
songs; rather, auditors could recreate the text of the original while experiencing Liszt’s pyrotechnics on stage, and these elements could remain separate. In short, the dozens of Schubert arrangements that Liszt
completed toward the close of the 1830s came to supplant the Symphonie fantastique as embodying the ideal balance between composer
and arranger, particularly in Germany.
By the second half of the 1830s, Liszt had begun to model himself
consciously after German composers, eschewing the French aesthetic
heritage that had served him since well before the beginning of the
decade. “My place will be between Weber and Beethoven,” he admitted,
“or rather between Hummel and Onslow.” His triumphs in Vienna only
increased his ambition. He continued with the concession that
70 According to Gooley, “In Vienna Liszt flaunted his connection with the French
romantics by playing pieces that had a literary basis [like the Symphonie fantastique], . . . as
though he were cultivating his exotic appeal” (The Virtuoso Liszt, 124). Liszt would quickly
reverse his position, revealing in his open letter to the Viennese (reproduced in Legány,
Unbekannte Presse und Briefe, 56–58) soon after his departure that he had never before felt
as understood artistically as he had in Vienna. His public pronouncement is corroborated
by his private letter to Adolphe Nourrit of 9 July 1838. See L. Quicherat, Adolphe Nourrit:
Sa vie, son talent, son caractère, sa correspondance [Paris: Hachette, 1867], 3:377.
71 In fact, suspicions of Liszt’s sympathies toward the 1830 French revolutionaries
ultimately cost him the coveted title of Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso, an honor
already afforded Thalberg and, more recently, Clara Wieck. See August Fournier’s detailed newspaper article of the whole affair, “Liszt und Sedlnitzky,” in D-WRgs, GSA
59/280, 2.
72 “Phantastische Symphonie,” NZfM 3/13 (14 August 1835): 50. “Ganz Deutschland schenkt es ihm: solche Wegweiser behalten immer etwas unwürdiges und Charlatanmäßiges.” In fact, part of Schumann’s rhetorical tactic in his review is to discredit
Berlioz’s program in order to highlight the work’s intrinsic, absolute musical merits.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 233
kregor
I am perhaps a génie manqué—only time will tell. I just know that I am
not a mediocre man. My “mission” will be to incorporate poetry into
piano music in a brilliant manner. I attach the utmost importance to
my harmonies [harmonies]. That will be my serious work, and I will sacrifice everything for it. When I have finished my tour as pianist, I will
play only for my own public. I will mold and elevate it.73
The musical hendiadys that lies at the heart of the Symphonie fantastique transcription had little place in Liszt’s bold new way of conceptualizing himself as an artist. His duel with Thalberg had occasioned the
formation of two highly partisan groups within the Parisian social elite,
and in the fallout Liszt would spend the majority of his subsequent concert years away from the French capital as he sought to realize a longstanding goal of fusing poetry and virtuosity—an effort that strained his
relationship with Berlioz while strengthening his connection to German and Hungarian artists.74 He would become more entangled in the
national affairs of these two countries—the Hungarian “saber of honor”
episode being the most infamous—as the concert years went on, and
his already fragile reputation in France would suffer accordingly well
beyond the 1840s.
The Symphonie fantastique had in large part defined Liszt’s Parisian
experience—he had witnessed the work’s premiere in 1830 and used it
to showcase important milestones within his own artistic career, particularly his entry as a virtuoso pianist into the public sphere in 1834 and
his reemergence as a complete artist in late 1836. But without Berlioz
and his orchestral music to balance with Liszt’s own works, the Symphonie fantastique became irrelevant in his experiences abroad. In Vienna Liszt realized that he could recreate—even eclipse—the fervor
that the Liszt-Berlioz concerts had generated in Paris if he altered his
programs to feature the music of German composers more prominently.75 The Lisztian spaces that characterized moments of “Un bal”
73 D’Agoult/Stern, Mémoires, souvenirs et journaux, 2:201. “Ma place sera entre Weber et Beethoven ou bien entre Hummel et Onslow. Je suis peut-être un génie manqué,
c’est ce que le temps fera voir. Je sens que je ne suis point un homme médiocre. Ma ‘mission’ à moi sera d’avoir le premier mis avec quelque éclat la poésie dans la musique de
piano. Ce à quoi j’attache le plus d’importance, ce sont mes harmonies; ce sera là mon
œuvre sérieuse; je ne sacrifierai rien à l’effet. Quand j’aurai terminé mon tour de pianiste, je ne jouerai plus que pour mon public à moi; je le formerai, je l’élèverai.”
74 The complicated structure of the Parisian listening audience during the 1830s is
explored in Gooley, The Virtuoso Liszt, chap. 1. Thalberg managed to ally most of Paris’s
upper echelon to his side; Liszt garnered less defined aristocratic support, although he
was successful in attracting much of Paris’s artistic sector. The whole affair severely crippled Liszt’s reputation in the French capital, for successive virtuosos to arrive in Paris
were measured by Thalberg’s standards, not those of Liszt.
75 Michael Saffle has juxtaposed the prominence that Liszt gave to, say, the Réminiscences de Don Juan in Germany against the work’s near absence on the French concert
233
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 234
the journal of musicology
became the dominant elements of Liszt’s new compositions, whereby
the overpowering impact of the artist’s persona was too sharply focused
to be shared with another. Indeed, Liszt’s only performance of fragments from the Symphonie fantastique abroad thus took on new symbolic
significance: It functioned both as a fond acknowledgment of his relationship with Berlioz and an abandonment of his former collaborative
way of life.
Liszt’s Symphonie fantastique
Five years into his tenure at Weimar, Liszt recalled one unfortunate
byproduct of his wildly successful years as a traveling virtuoso. Amidst
preparation for a performance of a revised version of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini the pianist lamented:
234
there are a very small number of men and works that cannot be understood and admired by halves. Berlioz is of that number; and I like
to believe that he will not misjudge the motives which up till now have
put me off actively involving myself in the performance of his works in Germany. . . . I consider myself honor bound to create for his works, one
by one, the positions they deserve. It is, for me, a matter of art and of
personal conviction; in consequence it has to be dealt with seriously,
worthily, without the least trifling.76
The late 1830s and 1840s may have indeed proved to be one of his
more fallow periods in championing Berlioz’s compositions. But unbeknownst to Liszt, his persistent presence on stage nevertheless accomplished much in disseminating the name and work of his old friend. Indeed, the seeds of Berlioz’s warm welcome to Weimar and northern
Germany in general in the late 1840s and 1850s were in part sown by
the numerous editions of the Symphonie fantastique arrangement that
were issued in the wake of Liszt’s spectacular concert appearances.
As Berlioz and his music became more of a fixture of the German
landscape and the full score of the Symphonie fantastique was made more
widely available, interest in the piano partition waned. Liszt made a
handful of slight revisions to the fourth movement in the mid 1860s,
which he coupled with an untitled fantasy on the idée fixe to form the
“Marche au Supplice de la Sinfonie fantastique” in 1866. By this time
stage during Liszt’s virtuoso concert years. See Saffle, Liszt in Germany. Liszt was rewarded
for these choices, being named an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde just two days before his final Viennese concert.
76 Letter to Gaetano Belloni (14 January 1852), quoted in David Cairns, Berlioz:
Servitude and Greatness, vol. 2 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000), 469; emphasis
added.
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 235
kregor
the rift between Berlioz and Liszt had become irreconcilable, and it was
more than a decade later when the last significant change in content to
the piano arrangement of the Symphonie fantastique occurred. In 1877
Liszt issued a second edition of the complete arrangement with Constantin Sander of Leipzig. The texts of the 1834 Schlesinger print and
the 1877 edition are essentially the same, but a new footnote in the first
movement stands out for its historical and ontological implications. It
refers to measure 359 and reads “This third line can not be played simultaneously with the other two on the piano—it only serves to illustrate the context of the original score.”77 Liszt’s ascetic second edition
eliminated many of the effusive performance instructions that helped
highlight the delicate balancing act between himself and Berlioz on
stage. The spectacular Liszt-Berlioz concerts had become archaic, and
Liszt’s changes effectively removed the work from the concert hall, the
very venue for which it had been created.78 For Liszt in the 1870s and
beyond, the content of the Symphonie fantastique was no longer to be
performed but rather to be revered and remembered as celebrating
one of the most important musical partnerships of the first half of the
19th century.
Harvard University
ABSTRACT
Franz Liszt’s transcription of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique
has long been recognized for its innovative approach to musical
reproduction—that is, its remarkable ability to recreate the sonic nuances of its model. However, the 1830s were a period of intense artistic
and professional collaboration with Berlioz, and the genesis of the Symphonie fantastique transcription can thus also be interpreted as emblematic of this developing relationship. In particular, a gestural analysis of
77 See p. 15 of the second edition: “NB. Cette troisième ligne n’est pas executable,
en meme [sic] temps que les deux autres, sur le piano, et sert seulement comme indication du contexte de la partition originale.” Liszt’s letter to Sander dated 11 November
1876 reveals the care with which he oversaw the publication of the second edition:
“Mit der heutigen Post empfangen Sie meine letzte Revision von Berlioz’s Symphonie
fantastique. Dem Titel habe ich zwei bemerkungen beigefügt, die ich Sie bitte bemerken
und befolgen zu wollen. Also ‘Partition de Piano’ — nicht Arrangement. . . . dann, ist es
unumgänglich nothwendig ihrer 2ten Ausgabe, das ganze Program von Berlioz, franzözisch
und deutsch (auf der 1ten Seite nach dem Titelblatt) einzurücken.” See Michael Short,
ed. and trans., Liszt Letters in the Library of Congress (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2003), 345–
46.
78 Jim Samson has recognized Liszt’s move away from virtuosity—and by extension
performance—toward a fixed, independent work beginning with the Weimar period. See
Samson, Virtuosity and the Music Work: “The Transcendental Studies” of Liszt (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003).
235
03.JOM.Kregor_pp195-236
4/23/07
9:22 AM
Page 236
the journal of musicology
236
the work’s content, as it can be recreated in part through Liszt’s meticulous performance notation, indicates that the transcription served to
reinforce a public perception of Berlioz as composer and Liszt as performer, whereby Liszt guides his audiences through Berlioz’s enigmatic
compositions by means of kinesic visual cues. Investigation of heretofore unknown manuscript materials suggests that this dynamic was
further emphasized in Liszt’s other renderings of Berlioz’s orchestral
works from the period.
For various reasons, the transcription’s inherently collaborative nature failed to impress audiences outside of Paris. As Liszt embarked in
earnest upon a solo career toward the end of the decade and his concert appearances with Berlioz became less frequent, interest in the
work waned on the part of both arranger and audience. Moreover, it
was in the late 1830s that Liszt began adding several new works to his
public repertory, especially opera fantasies, Schubert song arrangements, and weighty compositions by German composers. This decision
effectively removed his earlier material—including the all-too-French
Symphonie fantastique—from on-stage circulation. Indeed, when Liszt revised the transcription in the 1870s, he eliminated many of extraordinary collaborative elements found in the 1834 version, thereby disassociating it from the arena for which it was created.
Keywords:
Franz Liszt
Hector Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique
Piano transcription
Reception history