Liszt and his Piano Sonata in B Minor
The piano sonata in B Minor is a solo piano work composed by Franz Liszt in 1851 – 1852, which he dedicated to Robert Schumann.
It premiered on 27th January 1857 in Berlin, and was performed by Liszt’s pupil and son-in-law Hans von Bulow.
Hundreds of years later, this piece of work is still performed popularly and extensively by many artists.
Ji Liu, a 90s born Chinese pianist has explored this extraordinary piece of work.
Piano Sonata in B Minor
After its premiere, the sonata was attacked by several musical critics and composers, such as Brahms and Anton Rubinstein, nevertheless, it also received a passionate appreciation from Richard Wagner.
One of the German newspapers Nationalzeotung commented: “an invitation to hissing and stomping.”
generally speaking, the whole sonata can be divided into 4 movements, with the first movement starting as a slow introduction. There are no gaps between movements.
The Child Prodigy
Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Liszt appears as a controversial figure in the history of music.
Liszt was born into a minor Hungarian court functionary family.
His father Adam Liszt was very enthusiastic and passionate about music - it had been his own dream to become a musician.
In 1820, in a letter to Prince Nikolaus, he mentioned that his son had already worked through the complete works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi, Hummel, and Cramer, and further composers.
In Liszt’s early age, the whole family moved to Vienna, and he took piano lesson under Carl Czeny, who was a previous student of Ludwig van Beenthoven.
Franz Liszt’s showmanship
Liszt was surely a renowned performer throughout the whole Europe.
However in certain circle he was not taken seriously – some argued that his brilliance of performing has no substance, and was all for self-promotion with his showmanship.
In 1874 the critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: “The main objection against Liszt is that he imposes a much bigger – an abusive – mission on the subject of his work: namely either to fill the gap left by the absence of musical content or to justify the atrociousness of such content as these is.”
He developed his technique in a way that he needs to create his own style of music to adjust his capacity of performing. And thereby that kind of music did little rather than show off his technique.
He utilised the available music materials and refined it, instead of working from his own ideas. This could only demonstrate his ability to play octaves faster than anyone else, and hit the keys harder.
Music contribution
Frankly speaking, Besides his showmanship, Liszt contributed immensely towards nineteenth-century music.
In his compositions, the fireworks in fact only represent the surface, his symphonies anticipated the tone poems of Strauss and the huge fluid structure of Wagner.
And in his later piano music, he probably created the most prophetic work of his time.
Creator of piano recital
The piano recital form and the career as travelling virtuoso are created by Liszt.
In 1848 he accepted the invitation to become Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke of Weimar.
During this period, he wrote or revised most of the pieces for which he is now best known.
And also he was deidicating to conducting a vast of new works by different composers, which made Weimar became the centre of musical.
Last ten years
Since 1860s, he returned to his way as a travel virtuoso, and divided his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest.
However, he also devoted a large amounts of time for teaching, and together helped to produce some of the early twentieth century's greatest piansits, such as Clara Schumann.
Death
Liszt died shortly after his 75th birthday Jubilee tour, and he remained actively as a composer and performer right to the end of his life.