Perhaps no composition has influenced its contemporaries and the succeeding generation as deeply as Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Both in its theme (the transcendental nature of love and death) and in its musical language, characterized by ratcheting up dissonances to the utmost, the proliferation of chromaticism, and constant suspensions, opened a new era in music history. Thus, the motto for our CD, which bears the subtitle Studies for Tristan, is Träume. This work was originally the last song of the cycle known as the Wesendonck Lieder. The poem for the song was written by Mathilde von Wesendonck, who nursed tender feelings towards Wagner. Their romance and their shared interest in Schopenhauer became the main source of inspiration for Tristan.

Liszt and the cello

Few people are aware that if, by some catastrophe, the only works of Franz Liszt to survive were his chamber works, he would still rank as one of the most important composers of the nineteenth century. The vast majority of these compositions, barely two dozen in number, were written for strings and piano. Most of them also have a version for solo piano, but in many cases the various versions were written simultaneously, and the piano versions seem to have served practical purposes, both in terms of composition and in enabling the works to be played more widely.

Five works are known of in arrangements for cello and piano: Élégie, Zweite Elegie, Romance oubliée, La lugubre gondola and Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth. One might wonder why these particular works should have been arranged for these forces: is there anything that the works have in common? Looking at the titles, it is clear that two of them are elegies. But if we also take into account that in the title of Romance oubliée (Forgotten Romance) the word adjective “forgotten” suggests some kind of loss, and the composer originally planned to give La lugubre gondola the title Troisième Élégie, and one of the earlier versions of Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth also bore the title Élégie, then the common thread that runs through them becomes apparent.

Moreover, these works are similar not only in their mood, but in their chromaticism, richer even than that of Tristan, if such a thing were possible. Few similarly structured works are to be found in the musical literature, and some kind of story or narrative can be discerned in how the sections follow one another.

The phases of grief

What is this form, then? We immediately sense that these are not character pieces, much rather they resemble some kind of free song form. An examination of the first and second elegies reveals that both works begin with a recitativo. This monodic, lamentoso voice in the tenor register is questioning, almost accusatory. The recitativo then flows into a section reminiscent of a nostalgic waltz, which could even be the first strophe of a song. This inward-looking reminiscence-like section soon slackens in pace, to be followed by a transition where the mood is dolce amoroso, and the key is A-flat major, for Liszt the key of love. In the first elegy, this is where the harmonium and the harp enter, tinging the passage with a unique hyper-nostalgic colour.

This is followed by an increase in tension leading to an appassionato emotional climax, which could be a refrain, full of accusations and suffering – but this too peters out to give way to a recitativo once more. The next section is again in A-flat major, now a quiet dolce espressivo, with a flowing cantabile melody. In the coda, the initial sighing grief motif transforms into trills, as if space and time were dissolving into infinity.

I spent many hours wondering what might be behind these pieces, until one day I came across Alaine Polcz’s book Együtt az eltávozottal (Together with the deceased), in which Polcz describes the phases of grief with the means of modern psychology. Drawing on experience gained through her work, she describes the following aspects:

1. confronting death and loss
2. organization (necessary in our current culture for the ritual of funeral and burial)
3. yearning, seeking
4. losing one’s footing (confusedness, regression, a state of chaos)
5. reckoning, coming to terms with the loss, reevaluating the relationship (what I gave, what I received, what did it mean in my life, in their life)
6. path-seeking, adapting to the new form life takes

This opened my eyes to how I should look for Liszt’s own grief in these pieces, as if Liszt himself were addressing us in the recitativos; at the beginning of the first elegy, for instance, we can hear the question “Warum?” in the plangent descending minor second. Similarly, the transition is as if Liszt were contemplating the happy times spent together (amoroso, A-flat major), then returning from his daydream to the painful present (Liszt said of this piece that it was more suitable for
dreaming than performing) and the culminating passage is desperation itself, rootlessness, emotions flare up. But this energy wanes and is dissipated, in both cases it is subdued to a recitato, which then rocks uncertainly.

The dolce of this new section can easily be perceived as the reckoning, or coming to terms (“what I gave, what I received, what the relationship meant in my life and in their life”), and we can almost hear how the pieces lead us from the suffering of the world to heavenly transfiguration. The coda provides a final resolution: having resigned himself to fate, the composer finds solace in the knowledge that things are better for the deceased in the heavens, on high.

The six Consolations are among Liszt’s most popular piano pieces. A famous cellist, teacher, and composer of the time, Jules de Swert, made a transcription of these, which Liszt thanked him for in a letter of gratitude, noting in particular the choices of key for the movements. In the Royal Academy, a manuscript from the estate of Ernst de Munck is held, in Liszt’s hand, which contains a ten-bar transition composed to be between the first and the fourth pieces. Conceivably, Liszt played this with de Munk in March 1886, at a soirée held in Mihály Munkácsy’s salon, Liszt’s last public performance.

In the Romance oubliée which follows these it is not difficult to find a similar arc to that in the Élégies. The work was originally composed as a song in French in 1843 (“O pourquoi donc” [O, why]). Liszt reworked this as a piano piece entitled Romance, then in 1880 he radically revised it and added the adjective “oubliée” to the title. This version takes the not particularly significant song of nearly 40 years before and magically transforms it into a unique marvel: the new composition is one of the first instances of Mediterranean Impressionism in the history of music.

This piece too begins with a bitter, accusatory exclamation, from which the music seeks its way hesitantly to the first strophe. Here, the melody quotes a Neapolitan song, to which left-hand arpeggios on the piano imitate a guitar accompaniment. Based on the text of the original Lied, here a complaining soul seeks consolation in the past. Following this, the transition brings disintegration and decay, after which the energy intensifies, leading to a reorganization of the material in the climactic section. This refrain is in E major, which for Liszt was a religious key, and so through key symbolism he gave evidence of his faith even in time of mourning. (In this case, the specific fact of grief cannot be “proven”, yet everything, from the descriptor “forgotten”, to the performance indication malinconico, to the structural similarities with the elegies, points in this direction.)

The recitativo that follows leads to one of the finest passages in the musical literature. The performance indication is tranquillo, the music remains in the key of E major, Liszt’s religious key, and through static cello arpeggios, there ascend broken chords on the piano, all the while over a pedal point on E. Liszt again seems to have found solace in timelessness, and once more he gives evidence of his deeply felt faith: the departed soul is surely better off in heaven.

In 1881 Liszt had a fall on the stairs of his home in Weimar, from which he never fully recovered. Shortly afterwards he composed Nuages gris, which is quite rightly referred to as the gateway to modern music, for it is here that Liszt first comes within arm’s reach of the dissolution of traditional tonality. Even the beginning of the piece is ambiguous, and Liszt goes so far as to use this harmonically unstable augmented chord as the basic chord. The entire work is barely two pages, and is characterized by an utter lack of contrivance. Rhythmically, there is nothing “irregular” about it, the musical process proceeds in steady quarter-notes, and the structure of the piece is symmetrical. But the end of the piece drifts out of the realm of tonality, and the last chords are a presage of musical Impressionism — the feeling of desertion, complete despondency and utter gloom is almost palpable.

Between Liszt’s elegies we have inserted one of Wagner’s last compositions, the Elegie. The manuscript of barely two lines is dated the third day of Christmas 1881. Wagner wrote the work in Palermo, at the Piazza dei Porazzi, while working on Parsifal. Here, the megalomaniac composer of operas wrote a perplexingly brief work. Barely thirteen bars in length, to judge by the chromatically altered repetition of the first two bars, it might have been written by Liszt. The performance indication is Schmachtend – yearningly. The music poses questions, but we get no real answers, although by the end, the work settles into A-flat major.

Liszt wrote the first version of Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth on Nonnenwerth, an island in the Rhine, where in 1841 and 1843 he spent the summer with Countess Marie d’Agoult in a guest-house in a converted monastery (what could be more romantic?); due to his touring the length and breadth of Europe, he could only be with her in the summer. These summer breaks must have been idyllic for Liszt, and this is reflected in the song he wrote at this time. At the same time, melancholy is also present in the work, because this brief period was the sum of their carefree time together, though at the end of the composition, which closes in A major, optimism seems to triumph. However, in the more than four decades remaining of his life, Liszt returned to this work eight times, and revised it. At one point, the song became a virtuoso piano character piece, but the mood always changed, depending on the relationship between Liszt and the Countess – in 1844, their ways parted, and from then on melancholy and nostalgia became increasingly dominant.

In 1883, when the arrangement for cello and piano was made (“letzte, sehr veranderte Ausgabe [last, significantly altered version])”, Marie had already passed away, as had their joint children, Daniel and Blandine. This version conjures up the world of the elegies discussed above, moreover the end of the piece closes in the minor, on a second inversion chord, suggesting despondency, abnegation, and resignation; it does not bring solace or resolution, as in the case of the earlier works.

The grief of this elegy is over Marie and their common children. But the starting point for this piece is not the shock caused by the loss; much rather it is a painful look back over the past. Of particular interest is that here in the transition section, instead of the A-flat major reminiscences, we find a pastoral, pentatonic E major, and the amoroso passage comes after the culmination, as if Liszt and Marie’s relationship had broken earlier, and the piece were not written at the actual moment of loss, the reckoning has taken place: Liszt has found solace in the Almighty. However, in the refrain emotions rear up, he recalls the happy times spent together, when the family was still together – and because of bitter self-incriminations, subsequently in the coda he can no longer find consolation.

Wagner’s Death

The presentiment of Wagner’s death, and then his death itself, touched Liszt deeply, and this transformed his musical works. These four works are the most interesting, the most modern, and also the most harrowing of Liszt’s late output, and are indubitably some of the most important pieces in his oeuvre. Several characteristics link the four works. In addition to the common mood, the alternation of Impressionistic and Expressionist passages, and the ostinato and pedal point techniques, they are also linked by a common motif: an augmented triad, which then shifts by a minor second.

Before Liszt’s La lugubre gondola pieces, the CD features Wagner’s cor anglais solo (also inspired by Venetian gondola trips) from the opening of Act III of Tristan und Isolde. This Hirtenreigen (Shepherd’s song) quotes the songs of Venetian gondoliers, as if the shepherd were improvising on stage. After hearing this monody, Tristan responds with the monologue “Muss ich dich so verstehen”: he recognizes his role in his parents’ death, and also realizes that the same fate awaits him, and Isolde.

At the end of 1882, Cosima and Wagner were in Venice, renting the Palazzo Vendramin looking onto the Canale Grande, where they had a total of eighteen rooms at their disposal. Cosima invited her father to spend the winter with them and the grandchildren, and Liszt accepted, with special regard to the fact that Wagner was by then seriously ill, and it was clear that his days were numbered.

In the Mediterranean city, winter is a dank, overcast season, and fog often hangs over the canals. The mood in the Palazzo was governed by Wagner suffering minor heart attacks almost every day, and his body could now barely cope with any strain.

In Venice, all transport took place by gondola, including funeral processions. Perhaps funeral gondolas seen from the window of the Palazzo might have inspired Liszt’s piece, or perhaps the presentiment of Wagner’s approaching death. Liszt wrote: “In the last two weeks I have done nothing but write music. In my mind is the lapping motion of the paddles of a funeral gondola. I have tried to depict it, and I had to recast it twice, which led to further mournful thoughts, and whether I wished it or not, I had to continue scribbling on the manuscript paper, putting all else aside.”

One of the most bizarre incidents in the history of music emerges from the diary entry that Cosima wrote at the time: “[Wagner] once more, in his frankness, began to speak most coarsely of Father. He called his works ‘incipient madness’. It is impossible to decipher [illegible] with the distorted chords.” The entry for 29 November 1882 was erased at a later date, so it has been possible to reconstruct only part of the text.

Wagner was obviously within earshot in the Palazzo when Liszt was playing the piano. Could it be that he spoke of “incipient madness” on hearing his own funeral elegy?

La lugubre gondola II is in every respect akin to the elegies above. In the recitativo at the beginning of the work, we can almost hear Liszt himself speak: “Ich komme nächst, mein Freund”. I would like to highlight two passages that raise the work to the stature of a unique masterpiece, the dolcissimo, dolente transition, where the rocking motion of the left hand, and the alternation between minor and major every two bars in the right hand, is the kind of presage to Impressionism that Turner was in painting. The other passage is the coda to the coda (which does not feature in the piano version), where we hear chromatically rising and sinking parallel sixth chords, outlined by the cello, which slow and come to a halt — as if we could see the last lapping of the waves in the Venetian canals, after the funeral cortege. Once more, the coda brings neither consolation nor resolution.

Wagner died on 13 February 1883 in Venice. We know from Cosima’s diary that on the evening before he died, he played the Elegie to everyone on the piano. A long funeral procession set out to Bayreuth, first on funeral gondolas, then by rail. In all likelihood, this was what inspired Liszt, who was then in Pest, to write the piano piece R. W. – Venezia. “Today him, tomorrow me” – he allegedly said, on learning news of his death. On 22 May of the same year, a memorial concert was held in Weimar for the anniversary of Wagner’s birth. He would have been seventy years old. It was for this occasion that Liszt wrote his fourth Wagner elegy, Am Grabe Richard Wagners, simultaneously in versions for piano and for string quartet and harp.

These pieces are not quite atonal, but they lie somewhere beyond tonality. According to David Butler Cannata, a sensitive Liszt commentator, R. W. – Venezia, which begins in a tone of desperation, is actually Liszt’s prayer after Wagner’s death, in which he entrusts Wagner’s soul to his guardian angel, the Archangel Michael, so that when, following the funeral cortege, the soul approaches divine judgement in the afterlife, he should have a protector. Abounding in hidden musical references, the transitional passage with ascending augmented triads is the part where Michael leads Wagner to heaven, and the fanfare symbolizes the trumpets of judgement. But at the end of the piece, Liszt suddenly succumbs to despair, when he confronts what Cannata terms the “mortal realization of death.”

This is the point where the thread is taken up by Am Grabe Richard Wagners, but it already suggests resignation and acceptance. For Liszt, it is faith that brings solace, the conviction that Wagner has passed into the afterlife. Perhaps that is why Liszt altered the piece’s original ending. By then, the Archangel Michael has “completed” his task, Liszt has returned to earthly reality, and now the rituals and ceremonies are over, he summons the crusaders from the legend of the Grail to watch over Wagner’s grave as they guard over the holy relics in Monsalvat.

Reading these three pieces together is like describing an arc similar to that we ascribed earlier to the elegies. La lugubre gondola described only the presentiment of death, but in form it is akin to the elegies, as if Liszt experienced in anticipation what was soon to come. R. W. – Venezia is a depiction of Liszt’s grief, where he composed first the shock, then Wagner’s transfiguration in the afterlife; but Liszt suddenly plunges back into grief and doubt. Then comes Am Grabe Richard Wagners, where Liszt finally finds consolation in the knowledge that Wagner’s soul lives on in eternity.

But even here, Liszt was unable to find permanent solace. Thanks to research by Rossana Dalmonte, new information has come to light regarding the genesis of La lugubre gondola I and II. According to this, the work known in the Liszt literature as La lugubre gondola I is in matter of fact a later composition than La lugubre gondola II, indeed it may be one of Liszt’s last works, in which, a couple of years after Wagner’s death, he returns to Wagner’s memory, and as we shall see, his unsettled memories have not abated.

Over the accompaniment reminiscent of a Gondola song, Liszt wrote one of his most painful notes in bar six. The second part of the piece is a vast descent, which makes three attempts, but gets little further and desperately starts to repeat itself, slows, and returns to the central C of the piece, then breaks off, leaving only the left-hand tremolo sounding.

If any music truly proclaims desperation, disintegration, hopelessness, then this is it. It is poignant that although Liszt made peace with Heaven and with himself over Wagner’s death (and his own mortality), now two years later he returns to this theme, and writes his bleakest music. And as someone who, even in faith, finds no consolation. 

Tamás Zétényi
Translated by Richard Robinson