Liebestraum #1

Yes, I have already made a Liebestraum post, but I failed to mention in the title that it was the third Liebestraum. I have changed that now, but eventually, someone will be confused that I played the third piece in the series before the first one. (This was most likely because I heard it before the other two.)

If you have heard that piece, or if you saw me last month finding flour in Budapest, you also know who we are talking about today. Before someone suggests that I rename my site Tea with a Lisztian (TwL), I have a good reason to bring the famous pianist back.

I just discovered that Franz Liszt played this piece at his last-ever performance, just two weeks before the fateful day of July 31, 1886.

137 years ago. (Sometimes I don't appreciate the force of how long that is.)

Listen to the song here
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Even if you haven't been to my La Campanella post, you may have already seen the famous painting of Liszt that it contains. (I'll give it away: that post does not just contain flour photos.) As a young performer traveling around Europe, trying to show his originality with dramatic playing, and drawing crowds to himself, his earlier self is often criticized as "nothing but a show-off."

Things were different by the time we got to the 1880s, and I'm not just talking about gray hair. Later on in life, Liszt turned his attention to composing, conducting, and teaching. These activities brought him less praise, and he was even condemned by some who had different ideas about what made good music.

Eventually, he reached the point where he was done with public attention, since he decided he was no longer going to give a performance for any amount of money. This is why Carl Lachmund, one of Liszt's students who wrote about him, considered himself so lucky to be hearing a then-hidden talent.

Lachmund wrote down several occasions in which Liszt was rather disrespectfully asked to perform. (In one incident, two young women threw stones at his window at the crack of dawn, begging him to play because they had to leave the city in an hour.)

Here's the house where Liszt met with his students - the original "Lisztians." Don't walk down this street in Weimar too fast, or you might miss it. Image from weimar-tourist.de

 

Here is what this post I discovered says about the July 1886 performance. I assume this was copied from a book, but I can't find it:

"Although his health was failing, the elderly Liszt felt that he could not turn down a request by the Luxembourg “Societe de Musique” to attend a benefit concert being put on at the Luxembourg Casino during a short trip that he made to that country to visit friends. At 8:30 pm, with the orchestra assembled and the conductor waiting before a packed house, Liszt was given a long standing ovation as he was slowly escorted into the grand hall on the arm of one of his students. [...]

"At the conclusion [of the concert,] the audience must have been delighted to see a grand piano being wheeled out onto the stage as Liszt stood up and slowly advanced towards the platform. In 'the most profound silence possible,' Liszt played his 'Liebestraum #1,' his arrangement of Franz Schubert’s 6th 'Soirees de Vienne,' and his arrangement of Frederic Chopin’s 'Chants Polonais.' Per Liszt's great biographer, Alan Walker: 'This [...] may well have been the last time that he ever touched the keys of a piano. With these three final pieces, then, Liszt’s magical playing fell silent forever.'"

That brings us to the 137 years between then and now. What do we have left? One thing I can think of is the piles of compositions we have. (You'd be surprised at the number of Liszt's works that few musicians have ever heard of.) Every year, pianists will be recording them -- maybe recording Liebestraum #3 and La Campanella, the most popular ones, but hopefully more. 

I've already gotten started on it. In fact, I'm already thinking of what to write for another lesser-known piece that I'm learning. Or perhaps I should read the rest of the concert account and learn some more Schubert and Chopin pieces. There wouldn't be any harm in that.

Keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya