In his studies of Liszt's religious music, contributed to the Oxford
History of Music, Edward Dannreuther, then no longer a partisan of
Liszt, said of his mass:
"Among Liszt's many contributions to the repertoire of Catholic church
music the Missa solemnis, known as the Graner Festmesse, is the most
conspicuous. Written to order in 1855, performed at the Consecration of
the Basilica at Gran, in Hungary, in 1856, it was Liszt's first serious
effort in the way of church music proper, and shows him at his best in
so far as personal energy and high aim are concerned. 'More prayed than
composed,' he said, in 1856, when he wanted to smooth the way for it in
Wagner's estimation--'more criticised than heard,' when it failed to
please in the Church of St. Eustache, in Paris, in 1866. It certainly is
an interesting and, in many ways, a remarkable work.
"Liszt's instincts led him to perceive that the Catholic service, which
makes a strong appeal to the senses, as well as to the emotions, was
eminently suited to musical illustration. He thought his chance lay in
the fact that the function assigned to music in the ceremonial is mainly
decorative, and that it would be possible to develop still further its
emotional side. The Church employs music to enforce and embellish the
Word. But the expansion of music is always controlled and in some sense
limited by the Word--for the prescribed words are not subject to change.
Liszt, however, came to interpret the Catholic ritual in a histrionic
spirit, and tried to make his music reproduce the words not only
as _ancilla theologica et ecclesiastica_, but also as _ancilla
dramaturgica_. The influence of Wagner's operatic method, as it appears
in Tannhaeuser, Lohengrin, and Das Rheingold, is abundantly evident; but
the result of this influence is more curious than convincing. By the
application of Wagner's system of Leitmotive to the text of the mass,
Liszt succeeded in establishing some similarity between different
movements, and so approached uniformity of diction. It will be seen, for
example, that his way of identifying the motive of the Gloria with that
of the Resurrexit and that of the Hosanna, or the motive of the Sanctus
and the Christie Eleison with that of the Benedictus, and also his way
of repeating the principal preceding motives in the 'Dona nobis pacem,'
especially the restatement, at its close, of the powerful motive of the
Credo, has given to the work a musical unity which is not always in very
clear accordance with the text.
"In the Hungarian Coronation Mass (Ungarische Kroenungsmesse, 1866-7)
Liszt aimed at characteristic national colour, and tried to attain it by
persistently putting forward some of the melodic formulae common to music
of the Hungarian type which occurs in the national Rakoczy March and in
numberless popular tunes--or an emphatic melisma known to everybody
through the famous Rhapsodies. From beginning to end the popular
Hungarian element is represented by devices of this kind in a manner
which is always ingenious and well suited to the requirements of a
national audience.
"But the style of the entire Mass is as incongruous as a gipsy musician
in a church vestment--doubly strange to students of the present day,
who in Liszt's Rhapsodies and Brahms' Ungarische Taenze have become
familiar with the rhythmical and melodic phrases of the Hungarian gipsy
idiom, and who all along have known them in their most mundane aspect.
Apart, however, from its incongruities of style, the Offertorium is a
shapely composition with a distinct stamp of its own.
"Liszt's manner of writing for solo and choral voices is generally
practical and effective. The voice-parts are carefully written so as to
lessen the difficulties of intonation which the many far-fetched
modulations involve, and are skilfully disposed in point of sonority.
The orchestration, always efficient, is frequently rich and beautiful."
The opinion on this work, expressed in the _Tageblatt_ by Dr. Leopold
Schmidt (who used to be an uncompromising opponent of Liszt), is
illuminative of the present status of the Liszt cult:
"The Graner Messe is the older of Liszt's two Hungarian festival masses,
and was composed in 1855. The dispute as to its significance has lost
its point in these days of emancipation from the embarrassments and
prejudices of a former generation. In church music, as in everything
else, we now allow every writer to express his personality, and a
personality with the poetic qualities of Liszt wins our sympathies at
the outset.... The dramatic insistence on diverse details diminishes the
grandeur of the style; this method is out of place here, and is no
adequate substitute for the might of the older form-language. All the
other peculiar traits of Liszt we find here: the pictorial element, the
unconsciously theatrical (Wagner's influence is strongly felt), and the
preponderating of the instrumental over the vocal. Nevertheless, the
Graner Messe is probably Liszt's most important and most personal
creation. The touching entreaty of the Kyrie, the beginning of the
Gloria with its fabulously pictorial effect, the F-sharp major part of
the Credo are beauties of a high order. The final portions are less
inspired, the impression is weakened; but we learn to love this work for
many tender lyric passages, for the original treatment of the text, and
the genuine piety which pervades and ennobles it." This mass was sung at
the Worcester festival in 1909 under the conductorship of Arthur Mees.
In St. Elisabeth, which is published as a concert oratorio, Dannreuther
thinks that Liszt has produced something like an opera sacra. Lina
Ramann said that when the work was performed with scenic accessories it
came as a surprise to the composer. He took his cue from the order of
Moritz v. Schwindt's frescoes, which illustrate the history of Elisabeth
of Hungary in the restored hall of the Wartburg at Eisenach and planned
six scenes for which Otto Roquette furnished the verse. The scenes are:
the arrival of the child from Hungary--a bright sunny picture; the rose
miracle--a forest and garden scene; the Crusaders--a picture of Medaeival
pageantry; Elisabeth's expulsion from the Wartburg--a stormy nocturne;
Elisabeth's death, solemn burial, and canonisation. Five sections belong
to the dramatic presentation of the story. The sixth and last, the
burial and canonisation, is an instrumental movement which serves as a
prologue. The leitmotive, five in number, consist of melodies of a
popular type.
William J. Henderson, who can hardly be accused of being a Lisztianer,
wrote of the St. Elisabeth--after a performance some years ago in
Brooklyn at the Academy of Music, under the conductorship of Walter
Hall--as follows:
"To the great majority of the hearers, and to most of the performers,
the work must have been a novelty, and had the attraction of curiosity.
It is an early attempt at that dramatic narration, with an illusive
'atmosphere' supplied by the orchestra, which has been so extensively
practised since its composition. If Liszt had had the advantage of his
own experiment, and of the subsequent failures and successes of other
composers in the same attempt, no doubt his work would have been more
uniformly successful. As it is, no work which is heard in New York but
once in twenty years can be called a popular success. It is true that it
is worth a hearing oftener than that. True, also, that in Prague, with
the advantage of costumes and scenery, it had a 'run' of some sixty
nights. There is a strongly patriotic Magyar strain both in the book and
in the music, which would account for popular success in Hungary, if not
in Bohemia. But it must be owned that the orchestral introduction is
tedious, and much of the music of the first part a very dry recitative.
In this respect, however, the work acquires strength by going. The
Crusaders' March, which ends the first part, is so effective an
orchestral number that it is odd it should never be done in the concert
room. In the second part, much of the music allotted to Elisabeth is
melodious and pathetic, the funeral scene and the funeral march are
effective ensemble writing, and the last series of choruses, largely of
churchly 'plain song' for the voices with elaborate orchestral
embroidery, are impressive and even majestic."
In 1834 Liszt wrote to the _Gazette Musicale_ and described his own and
Berlioz's ideal of romantic religious music thus: "For want of a better
term we may well call the new music Humanitarian. It must be devotional,
strong, and drastic, uniting--on a colossal scale--the theatre and the
church, dramatic and sacred, superb and simple, fiery and free, stormy
and calm, translucent and emotional." Berlioz played up to this romantic
programme even better than Liszt. Need we adduce the tremendous Requiem!
Liszt's Graner-messe follows a close second.
Even if Liszt's bias was essentially histrionic his oratorio Christus
(1863-1873) is his largest and most sustained effort and the magnum opus
of his later years; you may quite agree with Dannreuther that its
conception is Roman Catholic, devotional, and contemplative in a Roman
Catholic sense both in style and intended effect. It contains nothing
that is not in some way connected with the Catholic ritual or the
Catholic spirit; and, more than any other work of its composer,
continues our critic, recognises and obeys the restrictions imposed by
the surroundings of the Church service. The March of the Three Kings was
inspired by a picture in the Cologne Cathedral. The Beatitudes and the
Stabat Mater Dolorosa contain pathetic and poignant writing.
"Liszt's Thirteenth Psalm is of especial importance, because the
epoch-making ecclesiastical music of the great composer is as yet so
little known in America," declares Mr. Finck. "This is the real music
of the future for the church, and it is inspired as few things are
in the whole range of music. Liszt himself considered it one of his
master-works. In one of his letters to Brendel, he says that it 'is one
of those I have worked out most fully, and contains two fugue movements
and a couple of passages which were written with tears of blood.' He had
reason to write with tears of blood; he had given to the world a new
orchestral form, had found new paths for sacred music, had done
more as a missionary for his art than any other three masters, yet
contemporaneous criticism was as bitter against him as if he had been an
invading Hun. To him the Psalmist's words, 'How long shall they that
hate me, be exalted against me?' had a meaning which could indeed be
recorded only in 'tears of blood.' There is a pathos in this psalm that
one would seek for in vain in any other sacred work since Bach's St.
Matthew's Passion. Liszt himself has well described it in the letter
referred to (vol. II, p. 72): 'Were any one of my more recent works
likely to be performed at a concert with orchestra and chorus, I would
recommend this psalm. Its poetic subject welled up plenteously out of my
soul; and besides I feel as if the musical form did not roam about
beyond the given tradition. It requires a lyrical tenor; in his song he
must be able to pray, to sigh, and lament, to become exalted, pacified,
and biblically inspired. Orchestra and chorus, too, have great demands
made upon them. Superficial or ordinarily careful study would not
suffice.'"
This superb psalm, performed at the recent Birmingham Musical Festival,
recalls to an English critic an interesting comment of the composer's in
regard to that particular work. When Sir Alexander Mackenzie met Liszt
in Florence several years ago, Sir Alexander said he was glad to tell
him (Liszt) that a performance of his Thirteenth Psalm had been
announced in England. A grim smile passed over the face of the great
composer as he replied: "O Herr, wie lang?" ("O Lord, how long?"), the
opening words of the psalm.
Mr. Richard Aldrich writes of the Angelus as follows:
"The little Angelus of Liszt is one of the very few pieces of
chamber music that he composed--his genius was more at home upon the
pianoforte, in the orchestra and in the massive effects of choral
singing. This piece has the character suggested in its subtitle: 'Prayer
to the Guardian Angels,' and is an expression of the deeply religious,
mystical side of his nature that led him to take holy orders in the
Church of Rome. It was originally written for a string quartet, but the
master added a fifth part for contrabass for a performance of it given
in London in 1884 by a large string orchestra under the direction of his
pupil, Walter Bache. It is given this afternoon in this form. The sense
of yearning, of aspiration and of spiritual elevation toward celestial
things is what the composer has aimed to embody in the music. After
brief preluding on the muted strings (without the contrabass) the first
violins take up a sustained cantabile that soon rises to a fervent
climax, fortissimo, and breaking into triplets reaches the highest
positions on the first violin, accompanied by full and vibrant harmony
on the other instruments, as though publishing feelings of the utmost
exaltation. There is a pause and the piece ends with the quiet feeling
in which it began."
"A most welcome novelty is the Chorus of Angels, composed by Liszt in
1849 for the celebration of the hundredth birthday of Goethe," said Mr.
Finck. "It is a setting of some of the most mystical lines in Faust,
originally written for mixed voices and pianoforte, and subsequently
arranged for women's voices and harp. Mr. Damrosch used Zoellner's
arrangement for choir and orchestra, and in this version it proved to
be one of the most ethereal and fascinating of Liszt's creations.
"Now that Mr. Damrosch has begun to explore the stores of Liszt's choral
music he will doubtless bring to light many more of these hidden
treasures. In doing so he will simply follow in the footsteps of his
father, who was one of Liszt's dearest friends, and who steadily
preached his gospel in New York. Of this good work an interesting
illustration is given in the eighth volume of Liszt's letters, issued a
few weeks ago by Breitkopf & Haertel. On December 27, 1876, Liszt wrote
to Leopold Damrosch:
"'ESTEEMED FRIEND: A few days ago I sent you the score of my
Triomphe funebre du Tasse. This funeral ode came into my mind on
the street of Tasso's Lament and Triumph, in which I often walk on
the way to my residence on the Monte Mario. The enclosed commentary
on it--based on the Tasso biography of Pier Antonio Serassi--I beg
you to print on your concert programme in a good English
translation.
"'I trust that this work may be received in New York with the same
favor that has been accorded to some of my other compositions. Amid
the incessant European fault-finding, the American kindness gives
me some consolation. Once more, I thank my esteemed friend Damrosch
for his admirable interpretations of my works, and remain his
cordially devoted
"'FRANZ LISZT.'"