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ON THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSIVE DEPICTIVE FEATURES OF FRANZ LISZT'S MUSIC
Abstract
The article considers the expressive depictive features of Franz Liszt's music. The significance of the aspect is determined both by the composer's specific personality, whose musical thought is inseparable from non-musical associations, and by a great role of descriptiveness in his music, which represented the composer's idea of musical renovation and progress.
Keywords
descriptiveness, associations, depictive features, musical picture, symphonic poem
AUTHOR Olga Yarosh
PhD in Arts, Assistant Professor Department of Music Theory and Composition Kransoyarsk State Institute of Arts Krasnoyarsk, Russia oliga23k 1@yandex.ru
Franz Liszt is a composer who played an exceptional role in the development of music. It is connected with renovation of musical forms and expressive devices. Being an amazing pianist and one of the greatest virtuosos of his time, Liszt was also a real artist; he always strived to express deep ideas and to reveal the most important spiritual meanings in his music.
That is why he discovered so much in the sphere of musical language: following the poetic conception or plot lead to free constructing of the musical form, his striving to express various life impressions and to preserve their beauty discovered new texture and figurative opportunities of his music and transformed the harmony.
It is known that Liszt connected musical renovation with the fact that, firstly, music must express the topical issues in accordance with the spirit of time; secondly, it should interrelate with other arts. These factors as well as the composer's personal traits, his emotionality, impressiveness, artistry and amazing piano talent promoted the significance of his works' depictive features. The main objective of this article is to consider these features of the composer's works.
Liszt's works include quite a number of musical pictures as a genre. Musical landscapes, which represent the images of nature, should be mentioned among the first.
Bright, quiet, pastoral motifs prevail in most of them. Such are the pieces from the "Années de pèlerinage" piano cycle ("Au lac de Wallenstadt", "Au bord d'une source", "Pastorale", "Eclogue"), the etudes: "Paysage", "Harmonies du Soir", as well as some episodes from symphonic poems; all of the above are among the works of the composer's early and mature periods.
A certain complex of imagery is characteristic of such pieces, where the significance of texture parameter deserves special attention. The most important depictive and vivid aspect of Liszt's musical landscapes is figuration. Thus, the changeable, opalescent, flashing water surface is depicted in the piece "Au lac de Wallenstadt" with the help of figuration. The simple bright tune played against it supports the image and embraces the sounds of the middle and high registers (from one-line octave to three-line octave), where steps at the intervals of one fourth and one fifth attract the listener's attention and promote the glassy and crystal sound. This early work by the composer demonstrates the depictive properties of his harmony, which are reflected in enharmonic modulations, and soft harmonic configurations, which emphasize flickering and play of colours. A similar image can be seen in the piece "Au bord d'une source", but it is more dynamic here.
In the "Paysage" etude the development of the piece is based on the variation of two themes: the first of them is a descending one and at the initial statement it is closely connected with the accompaniment, a steady movement in thirds associated with soft pastel and watercolour hues, while the second one is ascending and initially played in the high register in magadizing. The counterpoint of both themes creates a wonderful visual effect of the perspective view, distance and boundless space. As a result of variational development the composer emphasizes different nuances of the landscape as if showing the picture of changeable nature.
Here it is important to highlight a specific feature characteristic of romantic artists. This feature lies in the fact that turning to the images of the nature, the romanticists depict different dispositions and states of the soul. This is what Milshtein writes about Liszt's music, "For him any imitation of natural phenomena is just an instrument for expressing the inner world. In the splashing of waves, in the thunderstorm and the tempest, in the sparkling waterfalls - everywhere the voice of his feelings is heard; everything serves the purpose to increase the psychology of the experience" [1, 158].
The contents of "Pastorale" and "Eclogue" are also close to the above-mentioned works, but in them the theme of "man and nature" is revealed through the artistic device which is defined as "generalization through the genre". In that case, music acquires its depictive features thanks to its dancing characteristics and folk instruments imitated in it.
There are also depictive features in some symphonic poems by Liszt. Thus, in the introduction to the poem "Les préludes" the composer creates the image of dawn and the rising sun. Here the musical development is a wave of "unfolding", "kindling" sound, based upon the sequence of the melody in the strings and the harp, which is accompanied by pulsebeat of chords played by the woodwinds in the high pitch, which makes up the image of glittering light.
In the poem "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne" written after a poem by Hugo who opposes the suffering mankind to harmonious nature, an amazingly beautiful image of nature is revealed before our eyes (in the themes of the primary and secondary areas): a vague humming of the introduction is replaced with "magic" harp figurations, which are the background for a pastoral tune first played by the woodwinds and then by the strings. Its development is a dynamic growth leading to an anthem played by the orchestra tutti. But here the image is of a generalized symbolic character created by the composer within the framework of the anthem and pastoral genres. In both works, the composer creates the beauty of the sound associated with visual images by means of orchestral nuances: a
particular usage of certain timbres and their combinations manifests Liszt's orchestration discoveries.
The above-mentioned features of the composer's musical language used in his early and central periods' musical pictures had predetermined the distinctness of his later musical landscapes ("Les jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este", "Nuages gris", pieces from the "Weihnachtsbaum" cycle). It is pointed out that the composer's late works have pre-Impressionist trends in their texture [2, 3]. Szabolcsi writes, "Who else could overhear and reproduce the evening bells of Rome, the midday silence of the French forests, the clouds floating across the Hungarian sky, or the ruby and emerald glow of the evening Tivoli fountains? The musical Impressionism was born here" [2, p. 49]. The researchers note a special role of figuration plan within these works; it "...assumes the presenting and developing functions in building up the work's form" [3, p. 136], whereas the melody retreats to the background as if dissolving in the figuration; subtle colouring effects conditioned both by complexity and counterpoint of the work texture and by the peculiarities of the harmony mostly point out free application of seventh and ninth chords and colourful but not functional chords associations. All these characteristics anticipated the musical language and style of the Impressionist composers.
Some other works by the composer can also be referred to the genre of musical picture. Unlike those mentioned above, they can be characterized as dynamic and active ones, with a development tendency. Such is the piece "Orage", the etudes "Chasse-neige" and "Waldesrauschen", as well as the works conditioned with fantastic imagery: the etudes "Gnomenreigen", "Feux follets", and "Wilde Jagd". But there we can see the connection with psychological states, just like in the pastoral landscapes. Thus, the piece "Orage" creates this image brightly, on the one hand, while on the other hand it reflects the world of human passions and strong emotions.
The depictive principle of Liszt's music can also be seen in th e genre of musical portrait. Here we should mention "Historical Hungarian portraits" devoted to the composer's great contemporaries, outstanding Hungarians, along with the Hungarian and Polish fantasias from the cycle of "Weihnachtsbaum": the first of them is a paraphrase of verbunkos [a Hungarian dance] and the composer's self-portrait, while the second one based on the mazurka genre presents the portrait of the Countess of Witgenstein. It is known that the same images can be found in the symphony poem "Festklange". Besides, the programme works by Liszt contain the images of different literary characters such as Faust, Mephistopheles, Marguerite, Mazepa, Prometheus, Tasso, Hamlet and others.
Another peculiarity demonstrating the significance of the composer's depictive musical features is connected with a literary plot reflected in a number of musical works. Thus, the musical poem "Prometheus" reveals the main hero's character through a number of musical pictures based on the plot of the myth. They are musically connected with metamorphosis of the same theme. The first statement of the main theme symbolises courage and willpower of the main hero and it is perceived as a call to struggle, but its extension, impulsive and resolute, is thrilled with anxiety. The following variant of the main theme is a mournful recitative representing the sufferings of the enchained Prometheus. The composer creates the image of the hero's struggle with the help of a fugue, the development of which leads to the main theme resounding magnificently and jubilantly in the finale, which represents the greatness and glory of the hero. It is necessary to mention that alongside with representing the Prometheus myth's brightness, vividness and consistency the composer strives to render the poetic idea, which is here to reflect the resolution of human spirit (of an artist or genius) to achieve a lofty goal.
The theme of opposing an artist's sufferings and fame is reflected in such poems as "Mazeppa" and "Tasso". But these bright depictive works are also characterized by deep generalization, which is expressed in the music subordinate to the artistic concept. In the poem "Mazeppa" written after Victor Hugo's poem, the music that represents a wild
horse's furious gallop is characterised by flexibility and prominence, particular expressive details are emphasized, such as lashes of a great whip, falling of the horse and the rider and the latter's cry and sufferings. Still this depictive feature is not the main thing here: the work reflects the romantic image of a fierce, strong-willed and determined movement.
In the poem "Tasso" the above mentioned theme is presented in a particular way: here the hero's inner feelings go along with the pictures of his life. Thus, the poet's sufferings are connected with the image of his imprisonment, memories of the past are shown through the pictures of the courtier's life. But Liszt's main idea here is not the outer chain of events, but revealing the hero's inner world.
Visual impressions were very important for the composer, and his works impressed by paintings make evidence for this. Thus, Lizst confirms a new sphere of programme music. Different meaningful contexts of painters' works are reflected in such musical pieces. In the piece "Sposalizio" (after a painting by Raphael) the clear, quiet and glorious character of music is emphasized by the smooth, flowing and well-rounded melody reflecting the graphic features of the painting. The effect of visual perspective is shown by the artist through arch construction, while in Liszt's work, it is reflected through a special character of development, which is a gradual dynamic rise.
In his symphonic poem "Hunnenschlacht" impressed by Kaulbach's painting, the composer depicted the battle in such a way that it caused a new interpretation of the sonata form, and also resulted in some new discoveries of instrumentation and harmony. The frescos by M. Schwind in Wartburg inspired Liszt to compose the oratory "The Legend of St. Elizabeth". On the one hand, the composer was attracted by the ethical character of the plot connected with the theme of charity and compassion; on the other hand, the artist's work influenced Liszt's composition, "... each of the oratory's musical scenes listed by the composer corresponds with one of Schwind's frescos depicting different episodes of Elizabeth's life" [1, p. 148].
Thus, the significance of Liszt's descriptive music is determined by a great role of programme character in his music and his demand for out-of-music associations. But at the same time it is necessary to emphasize that he never identified the depictiveness and the naturalistic expression. Composing programme music was one of his own ways to broaden the potential of musical art, to establish its ability to express deep meaning and to start a dialogue with other arts.
REFERENCES
1. Milshtein, Ya. Ferenz Liszt. Moscow, 1999.
2. Sabolcsi, B. The last years of Ferenz Liszt. Budapest, 1959.
3. Marina R. Chernaya. Some Features of figurative style of Liszt's piano music. Ferenc Liszt. Après une lecture du genie. Proceedings of the international Research and Practice conference (16-18 February, 2012). St. Petersburg, Pedagogical University Publishing House, 2013. P. 124-137.
