Chapter 12 - The Fruitful Years, 1945-2013

Summary

SYNOPSIS

Following upon the end of World War II, interest in Liszt increased in England despite the passing of major figures key to his cause: these included Sir Thomas Beecham, Constant Lambert, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Sir Henry Wood. By the mid-1960s the “Liszt renaissance was well underway,” attracting “a generation of performers and scholars” committed to an extensive exploration of his works with “Liszt enthusiasm … [reaching] its most recent peak in 1986.” Today, as Sir Simon Rattle prepares to leave the Berlin Philharmonic to become “the most powerful ambassador for music education in this country,” the future augurs well for Liszt and his music.

Notwithstanding his splendid performances of Liszt, currently available on CD, Frederic Lamond probably performed his greatest and most enduring service to Liszt and his music in March 1945, when he spoke of the composer in hallowed tones during a talk transmitted from Broadcasting House in London: a talk that communicated to his listeners the transparent nobility of the great Hungarian.

Lamond's remembrance of Liszt, of course, is dramatically at odds with the view of his idol expressed in 1934 by Ernest Newman: “a foolish character assassination” of the great pianist composer. The sleeve note to the 1969 reprint of Newman's biography, which claims that his study is “an honest effort for truth and clarity,” blatantly endorses the works’ legitimacy and highlights “the virtuoso's so called spinelessness … snobbishness … drunkenness … lecherousness … [and the] sentimentality of his religiosity.”

Probably as a result of Lamond's 1945 talk, a sudden flurry of orchestral compositions by Liszt were heard at the Royal Albert Hall later that year. As conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Lambert directed six Liszt works during a three-week summer period: the Mephisto Waltz No. 1, Les Préludes, Hunnenschlacht, Die Loreley (with Russian soprano Oda Slobodskaya), the Schubert/Liszt Wanderer Fantaisie (with Kentner as soloist), and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Witold Malcuzynski at the keyboard). Shortly afterward Liszt's Faust symphony was performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the same building.

In September 1946, pianist Franz Osborn—recently released from Lingfield Internment Camp—played Liszt's Malédiction for piano and strings with Boult at the podium, shortly before Boult entered the employ of BBC Music's Third Program.