In his The Symphony Since Beethoven, Felix Weingartner, renowned as a
conductor and composer, has said some pertinent things of the Liszt
symphonic works. It must not be forgotten that he was a pupil of the
Hungarian composer. He has been discussing Beethoven's first Leonora
overture and continues thus:
"The same defects that mark the Ideale mark Liszt's Bergsymphonie, and,
in spite of some beauties, his Tasso. Some other of his orchestral
works, as Hamlet, Prometheus, Heroide Funebre, are inferior through
weakness of invention. An improvisatore style, often passing into
dismemberment, is peculiar to most of Liszt's compositions. I might say
that while Brahms is characterised by a musing reflective element, in
Liszt a rhapsodical element has the upper hand, and can be felt as a
disturbing element in his weaker works. Masterpieces, besides those
already mentioned, are the Hungaria, Festklaenge the Hunnenschlacht, a
fanciful piece of elementary weird power; Les Preludes, and, above all,
the two great symphonies to Faust and Dante's Divine Comedy. The Faust
Symphony intends not at all to embody musically Goethe's poem, but
gives, as its title indicates, three character figures, Faust, Gretchen
and Mephistopheles. The art and fancy with which Liszt here makes and
develops psychologic, dramatic variation of a theme are shown in the
third movement. Mephistopheles, the 'spirit that denies,' 'for all that
does arise deserves to perish,' is the principle of the piece.
"Hence, Liszt could not give it a theme of its own, but built up the
whole movement out of caricatures of previous themes referring specially
to Faust; and it is only stupid lack of comprehension that brought
against Liszt, in a still higher degree than against Berlioz, the
reproach of poverty of invention. I ask if our old masters made great
movements by the manifold variation of themes of a few bars, ought the
like to be forbidden to a composer when a recognisably poetic thought is
the moving spring? Does not invention belong to such characteristic
variation? And just this movement reveals to us most clearly Liszt's
profound knowledge of the real nature of music. When the hellish Devil's
brood has grown to the most appalling power, then, hovering in the
clouds of glory, the main theme of the Gretchen movement appears in its
original, untouched beauty. Against it the might of the devil is
shattered, and sinks back into nothing. The poet might let Gretchen
sink, nay, become a criminal; the musician, in obedience to the ideal,
noble character of his art, preserves for her a form of light. Powerful
trombone calls resound through the dying hell-music, a male chorus
begins softly Goethe's sublime words of the chorus mysticus, 'All that
is transient is emblem alone,' and in the clearly recognised notes of
the Gretchen theme a tenor voice continues, 'The ever-womanly draweth us
up!' This tenor voice may be identified with Goethe's Doctor Marianus;
we may imagine Gretchen glorified into the Mater Gloriosa, and recall
Faust's words when he beholds Gretchen's image in the vanishing clouds:
'Like some fair soul, the lovely form ascends,
And, not dissolving, rises to the skies
And draws away the best within me with it.'
"So, in great compositions, golden threads spun from sunshine move
between the music and the inspiring poetry, light and swaying, adorning
both arts, fettering neither.
"Perhaps with still more unity and power than the Faust Symphony is the
tone poem to Dante's Divine Comedy, with its thrilling representations
of the torments of hell and the 'purgatorio,' gradually rising in higher
and higher spheres of feeling. In these works Liszt gave us the best he
could give. They mark the summit of his creative power, and the ripest
fruit of that style of programme music that is artistically justified,
since Berlioz.
"Outside of these two symphonies Liszt's orchestral works consist of
only one movement and, as you know, are entitled Symphonic Poems. The
title is extremely happy, and seems to lay down the law, perhaps
the only law that a composition must follow if it has any raison
d'etre. Let it be a 'poem,' that is, let it grow out of a poetic
idea, an inspiration of the soul, which remains either unspoken or
communicated to the public by the title and programme; but let it also
be 'symphonic,' which here is synonymous with 'musical.' Let it have a
form, either one derived from the classic masters, or a new one that
grows out of the contents and is adapted to them. Formlessness in art is
always censurable and in music can never win pardon by a programme or by
'what the composer was thinking.' Liszt's symphonic works show a great
first step on a new path. Whoever wishes to follow it must, before all
things, be careful not to imitate Liszt's weakness, a frequently
remarkable disjointed conception, nor to make it a law, but to write
compositions which are more than musical illustrations to programmes."
Rubinstein, though he had been intimate with Liszt at Weimar, and
profiting by his advice, made no concealment of his aversion to the
compositions. In his "Conversation on Music" he said: "Liszt's career as
a composer from 1853 is, according to my idea, a very disappointing one.
In every one of his compositions 'one marks design and is displeased.'
We find programme music carried to the extreme, also continual
posing--in his church music before God, in his orchestral music works
before the public, in his transcriptions of songs before the composers,
in his Hungarian rhapsodies before the gipsies--in short, always and
everywhere posing.
"'Dans les arts il faut faire grand' was his usual dictum, therefore the
affectation in his work. His fashion for creating something new--a
tout prix--caused him to form entire compositions out of a simple
theme.... So: the sonata form--to set this aside means to extemporise
a fantasia that is however not a symphony, not a sonata, not a
concerto. Architecture is nearest allied to music in its fundamental
principles--can a formless house or church or any other building be
imagined? Or a structure, where the facade is a church, another part of
the structure a railway station, another part a floral pavilion, and
still another part a manufactory, and so on? Hence lack of form in music
is improvisation, yes, borders almost on digression. Symphonic poems (so
he calls his orchestral works) are supposed to be another new form of
art--whether a necessity and vital enough to live, time, as in the case
of Wagner's Music-Drama, must teach us. His orchestral instrumentation
exhibits the same mastery as that of Berlioz and Wagner, even bears
their stamp; with that, however, it is to be remembered that his
pianoforte is the _Orchestra-Pianoforte_ and his orchestra the
_Pianoforte-Orchestra_, for the orchestral composition sounds like an
instrumented pianoforte composition. All in all I see in Berlioz,
Wagner, and Liszt, the Virtuoso-Composer, and I would be glad to believe
that their 'breaking all bounds' may be an advantage to the coming
genius. In the sense, however, of specifically musical creation I can
recognise neither one of them as a composer--and, in addition to this, I
have noticed so far that all three of them are wanting in the chief
charm of creation--the naive--that stamp of geniality and, at the same
time, that proof that genius after all is a child of humanity. Their
influence on the composers of the day is great, but as I believe
unhealthy."