The sixth of Liszt's symphonic poems, Mazeppa, has done more than any
other to earn for its composer the disparaging comment that his piano
music was orchestral and his orchestral music Klaviermaessig. This
Solomon judgment usually proceeds from the wise ones, who are aware that
the first form of Liszt's Mazeppa was a piano etude which appeared
somewhere toward the end of 1830.
Liszt's orchestral version of Mazeppa was completed the middle of last
century and had its first hearing at Weimar in 1854. Naturally this is a
work of much greater proportion than the original piano etude; it is, as
some one has said, in the same ratio as is a panoramic picture to a
preliminary sketch.
The story of the Cossack hetman has inspired poets and at least one
painter. Horace Vernet--who, as Heine said, painted everything hastily,
almost after the manner of a maker of pamphlets--put the subject on
canvas twice; the Russian, Bulgarin, made a novel of it; Voltaire
mentioned the incident in his History of Charles the Twelfth; Byron
moulded the tale into rhyme, as did Victor Hugo--and the latter poem was
used by Liszt for the outline for his composition.
The amorous Mazeppa was of noble birth--so runs the tale. But while he
was page to Jan Casimir, King of Poland, he intrigued with Theresia the
young wife of a Podolian count. Their love was discovered and the count
had the page lashed to a wild horse--_un cheval farouche_, as Voltaire
has it--which was turned loose.
From all accounts the beast did not allow grass to grow under its hoofs,
but lashed out with the envious speed of the wind. It so happened that
the horse was "a noble steed, a Tartar of the Ukraine breed." Therefore
it headed for the Ukraine, which woolly country it reached with its
burden; then it promptly dropped dead.
Mazeppa was unhanded or unhorsed by a friendly Cossack and nursed back
to happiness. Soon he grew in stature and in power, becoming an Ukraine
prince; as the latter he fought against Russia at Pultowa.
That is the skeleton of the legend. Liszt has begun his musical tale at
the point when Mazeppa is corded to the furious steed, and with a cry it
is off. This opens the composition; there follow the galloping triplets
to mark the flight of the beast, irregular and wild. Trees and mountains
seem to whirl by them--this is represented by a vertiginous tremolo
figure, against which a descending theme sounds and seems to give
perspective to the swirling landscape.
When the prisoner stirs convulsively in the agony of his plight, the
horse bounds forward even more recklessly. The fury of the ride
continues, increases, until Mazeppa loses consciousness and mists
becloud his senses. Now and again pictures appear before his eyes an
instant as in a dream fantastic.
Gradually, as an accompaniment to the thundering hoof falls, the passing
earth sounds as a mighty melody to the delirious one. The entire plain
seems to ring with song, pitying Mazeppa in his suffering.
The horse continues to plunge and blood pours from the wounds of the
prisoner. Before his eyes the lights dance and the themes return
distorted. The goal is reached when the steed breaks down, overcome with
the killing fatigue of its three days' ride. It pants its last, and a
plaintive andante pictures the groaning of the bound Mazeppa; this dies
away in the basses.
Now the musician soars away in the ether. When he returns to us it is
with an allegro of trumpet calls. Mazeppa has been made a prince in the
interim and is now leading the warriors of the steppe who freed him.
These fanfares lead to a triumphal march, which is the last division
of the composition. Local colour is logically brought in by the
introduction of a Cossack march; the Mazeppa theme is jubilantly shared
by trumpet calls, and the motif of his sufferings appears transformed as
a melody of victory--all this in barbaric rhythms.
In form the work is free; two general divisions are about as much as it
yields to the formal dissector. It follows the poem, and, having been
written to the poem, that is really all the sequence demanded by logic.
Liszt was decidedly at a disadvantage as a composer when he lacked a
programme. Usually in composing his purpose was so distinct, the music
measuring itself so neatly against the logic of the programme, that his
symphonic compositions should be most easily comprehended by an
audience.