Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Liszt: the Romantic artist
- 2 Inventing Liszt's life: early biography and autobiography
- 3 Liszt and the twentieth century
- 4 Liszt's early and Weimar piano works
- 5 Liszt's late piano works: a survey
- 6 Liszt's late piano works: larger forms
- 7 Liszt's piano concerti: a lost tradition
- 8 Performing Liszt's piano music
- 9 Liszt's Lieder
- 10 Liszt's symphonic poems and symphonies
- 11 Liszt's sacred choral music
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index of Liszt’s musical works
- General index
7 - Liszt's piano concerti: a lost tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- 1 Liszt: the Romantic artist
- 2 Inventing Liszt's life: early biography and autobiography
- 3 Liszt and the twentieth century
- 4 Liszt's early and Weimar piano works
- 5 Liszt's late piano works: a survey
- 6 Liszt's late piano works: larger forms
- 7 Liszt's piano concerti: a lost tradition
- 8 Performing Liszt's piano music
- 9 Liszt's Lieder
- 10 Liszt's symphonic poems and symphonies
- 11 Liszt's sacred choral music
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index of Liszt’s musical works
- General index
Summary
In 1898 Ferruccio Busoni presented a series of four concerts at the Sing-Akademie in Berlin on the history of the concerto. In the programme notes printed as an accompaniment to Busoni's performances, another pianist, José Vianna da Motta, explained that the goal of the concerts was to renew respect for the concerto and to show that, at least in its modern form as represented by the works of Liszt, the concerto was no longer a genre designed simply for virtuosic display. At the first concert, Vianna da Motta began his essay with the following observation:
In most textbooks of musical composition (e.g. Marx's Kompositionslehre) the concerto form is described as inferior because the preference for one or more instruments and the obligation to give the performer the opportunity to display his skilfulness hinders the composer from letting his art develop freely.
In reference to the latter point, i.e. letting the soloist's technique shine by piling up diverse difficulties, this indeed was the original purpose of the genre. Even Mozart treated the concerto in this manner … Of course now the concerto has long since outgrown the aim of mere musical games. Beethoven added the poetic content conferred on his sonatas, quartets and symphonies to his piano concertos, as is undoubtedly evident in his last two works in this genre, and Liszt followed him in this endeavour … [In the modern concerto] the piano and the performer are no longer the purpose, but rather the means to an end.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Liszt , pp. 152 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005