Liszt Dante Symphony

[Alan Howe]

Is this not some of the most extraordinary music written in the mid-nineteenth century?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8huOjLi2YE

[Alan Howe]

Listening again to this incredibly forward-looking music, I thought : surely Mahler must have known the Dante Symphony. There's so much here that looks forward forty years to, for example, Mahler 2.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Only a thoroughly silly person would disagree with that view of the Dante Symphony, Alan. Yes, yes, and yes to your original question (which I suppose is a rhetorical one anyway). Using the word in its full sense, yes, the Dante Symphony is a truly amazing work. Surely nothing quite like it was composed before, and it is a precursor of works written 40-50 years later that many have labelled 'revolutionary'. I'm sure some of my last spluttering cogitations will be of how utterly amazing Liszt was as a composer.

However - and maybe just an irrelevant bit of autobiography - I remember (vividly) a concert I went to many years ago when Jorge Bolet was the soloist in the Totentanz (interesting that I now can't remember the orchestra or conductor, for his performance of the piece just swept everything else to one side).

I was knocked for six, and almost quite shocked and stunned such was the impact of this music on me. I had never, ever, heard music like that before. It was, well (still lost for words about 40 years after the event) somehow overwhelmingly audacious. I never knew that music could be so deeply expressive. For weeks afterwards I was conjuring up images of Bolet in my dreams and the music was still resounding in my head. I was lost in wonder as to how anyone could write a piece like that.

So no disagreement about the Dante Symphony - but it is the Totentanz that would be my candidate for the most extraordinary piece written in the mid-nineteenth century. (And note: 'most extraordinary' doesn't mean 'the greatest': it is arguable that the Totentanz isn't an especially well composed piece or musically interesting - but, wow, the impact of the thing. Tremendous!

[Delicious Manager]

For me, Liszt's Dante Symphony epitomes what I find difficult to stomach about some of this composer's music; it's 'Much Ado About Nothing' to my ears. It takes a great deal of chromatic thrashing about to achieve very little. Call me 'silly' if you like, but I wouldn't compare it to Mahler for one minute. Yes, Mahler often wears his heart on his sleeve, but he also achieves great sensitivity and chamber-music delicacy in a way that was completely foreign to the iconoclastic Liszt.

Listening to the first movement of the Dante Symphony is, indeed Purgatory for me; a Purgatory of noisy aimlessness.

Horses for courses!

[Alan Howe]

You entirely misunderstand my post, I fear. I was not passing any judgment as to the work's quality, but was merely expressing my astonishment at the forward-looking nature of the music, which I think is undeniable. In fact, I now find it impossible to listen to Mahler without recalling that Liszt paved the way for him.

[pianobaba]

I fully concur with the original post. Liszt is still largely uncredited with his influence on later composers. Think of Debussy visiting Liszt in Rome and hearing him play privately Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'este, enormous influence on the Russians as well from the later Russian Romantics to Schnittke. I am new to this forum, and I will state I am an avowed champion of Liszt! Though I promise my interest in this forum is for more unsung composers! Though, most Liszt is truly unsung as well, I had my breath taken away by a rare performance of Liszt's Psalm 137 for organ, solo violin, timpani, soprano and small choir, the sheer astonishing beauty of this and its very unusual scoring, and as far as I have been able to look, there it still no recording of it besides a few Youtube videos with poor sound   (I can't believe Hyperion hasn't released several discs of Liszt's rarer sacred music yet). Or Christus! Anyway, I digress

So much great music in the world...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Speaking for myself I'm very glad to welcome a Liszt enthusiast to the forum! And I think Liszt entirely appropriate to a site focussing on unsung romantic composers. Concerts, broadcasts, and recordings tend to centre upon the same works repeated again and again. But so much of Liszt's breathtakingly enormous range of compositions is not well represented, and, as you say, is even unrecorded. And, as is said above, so much of it is astonishing and quite extraordinary.

[Jonathan]

Indeed - nice to find another Lisztian here besides myself!

[Amphissa]

I guess I'm defective in some way. I hear *zero* Mahler in this symphony. I hear *nothing* that Mahler pays homage to.

Just my opinion, but -- Liszt is not unsung, but this symphony is unsung for good reason. It is just simplistic scales with no real melodies and a lot of pointless bluster. Even the slow passages are lacking in charm or depth.

To each his own,eh?

This is a good example of a case in which a rating scale would be of no value. Some would rate it highly, others very low. Ratings tell you more about the rater than the music.

[Alan Howe]

I disagree profoundly. I find it impossible to imagine Mahler's music without the precedent of Liszt. Here's a reviewer who supports my case:
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/c/cha10524a.php

[pianobaba]

It is almost inconceivable to think of Mahler without Wagner, it is almost inconceivable to think of Wagner without Liszt (and all without Beethoven). The importance of Liszt on Wagner and everything Wagnerian was deliberately buried through Liszt's incredible humility and generosity coupled with Wagner's incredible arrogance with a dash of German chauvinism/nationalism thrown in.

In no way due I mean in a disrespectful way to Wagner or Mahler, I love them both. Great composers are influenced by other great composers. It's just the the standard musical "evolutionary" narrative which grew out of early musicology was very limited and very German and cast a long shadow on the mainstream perception of "the standard repertoire" to this day (of which the unfortunate effects all members of a forum named "Unsung Composers" should be familiar with!!  )

This limited, inaccurate narrative has been exploded in the past 50 years of musicology, but its effects linger on.

I am not here to say everyone must love Liszt's Dante symphony or any Liszt (I do love it, but I prefer the Faust as well as many other completely unsung Liszt compositions), but in 2013 the appreciation of Liszt should not require any caveats, nor any disclaimers, he was one of the greatest, most original, and most influential composers, musicians, and musical minds of the 19th century. If you have no time for Liszt, that's fine, but to deny Liszt's importance as a composer in the history of western music is just factually inaccurate. Note: this tirade was not directed to anyone specifically in this thread, but to the world at large. 

[Alan Howe]

My original point, therefore, stands: it is impossible to conceive of Mahler's music without Liszt's prior example. The Dante Symphony is an important work, I think - especially when one considers when it was written (it was premiered in 1857) - although the real masterpiece is surely Liszt's Faust Symphony: try Thielemann on Blu-ray - fabulous:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEywjg7sHk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thielemann-Faust-Overture-Symphony-Blu-ray/dp/B005MJDW90/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377277026&sr=8-1&keywords=faust+thielemann