15. Symphonic poems.

Until he arrived in Weimar, Liszt had written very little for the orchestra. He lacked confidence in this field but resolved to master it. At first he was assisted by August Conradi, a composer of light music whom he had engaged as a copyist as early as 1844. Liszt used to submit to Conradi a short score marked with instrumental cues. Conradi would then prepare a full score which embodied Liszt’s instructions, and perhaps make some further suggestions of his own. From this version Liszt would rehearse the work and make revisions in the light of practical experience. The process might be repeated several times until Liszt was satisfied. Conradi lived in Weimar for about 18 months, from February 1848 until the summer of 1849. His work was eventually taken over by Joachim Raff who assisted Liszt until 1854. Since Raff later put out some inflated claims about his own role in Liszt’s composing process (his letters on this topic, suggesting that he was an equal collaborator, were published posthumously in Die Musik, 1902–3) a question mark was placed over the authenticity of Liszt’s orchestral music. Peter Raabe was able to remove it when he embarked on a careful comparison of all the known sketches with the published scores, and demonstrated that every note of the final versions is by Liszt himself (Raabe, H1931, ii, 71–9 contains a compressed account of his extensive discussion).

Around 1853 Liszt introduced the term ‘Symphonische Dichtung’ (‘Symphonic Poem’) to describe a growing body of one-movement orchestral compositions, programmatically conceived. ‘New wine demands new bottles’, he once declared. The language of music was changing; it seemed pointless to Liszt to contain it in forms that were almost 100 years old. In the symphonic poems there are shifts in structural emphasis: recapitulations are foreshortened while codas assume developmental proportions and themes are reshuffled into new and unexpected chronologies, with contrasting subjects integrated by means of thematic metamorphosis. He wrote 12 such pieces in Weimar (a 13th, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, is a product of his old age). The first group of six was published in 1856, the second between 1857 and 1861. All are dedicated to Princess Carolyne, and bear titles which reveal the source of their inspiration: Tasso, Les préludes, Orpheus, Prometheus, Mazeppa, Festklänge (all published 1856); Héroïde funèbre, Hungaria, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne (all 1857); Die Ideale (1858); Hamlet, Hunnenschlacht (both 1861).

Several of the symphonic poems deal with exceptional heroes – Hamlet, Mazeppa, Orpheus, Tasso, Prometheus – characters who confront overwhelming odds or find themselves in an impossible dilemma. Liszt identified with such protagonists throughout his life. Each symphonic poem was published with a preface which discloses the source of its extra-musical inspiration: Kaulbach’s painting Hunnenschlacht, Victor Hugo’s poem ‘Mazeppa’, the Etruscan vase in the Louvre on which was depicted Orpheus playing his lyre, and so forth.

With the exception of Les préludes, none of the symphonic poems has entered the standard repertory, although the best of them – Prometheus, Hamlet and Orpheus – repay attention. Their historical importance is undeniable; both Sibelius and Richard Strauss were influenced by them, and adapted and developed the genre in their own way. For all their faults, these pieces offer many examples of the pioneering spirit for which Liszt is celebrated.

Liszt, Franz