![]() Liszt derived all of his structure and direction within his pieces from “their relation to a poetic idea.” 9 Liszt set his aims much higher than simply “illustrating” concrete ideas he believed that music had the ability to point to things outside itself, to convey messages and concepts through allegory. For Liszt, however, a work’s programmatic elements were far more than a mere device to catch and hold the audience’s attention. 8 Such critics saw no artistic merit in incorporating extra-musical inspiration. Proponents of Absolute Music disparaged composers’ use of program as a facade designed to hide the superficiality of their music. ![]() 7īefore delving into the more technical aspects of Liszt’s Symphonic Poems, his overall attitude towards Programmatic Music must be briefly surveyed. Though there is no exact definition of a Symphonic Poem, they can be identified primarily by two characteristics: the use of extra-musical material as inspiration for the work, and the use of thematic transformation as a structural and organizational technique. The Symphonic Poem is better described as a genre than a form, because Liszt wanted to allow himself and other composers of the Symphonic Poem to have freedom to express their ideas without the strict constraints of Classical forms. 4 Liszt primarily wanted his Symphonic Poems to achieve two goals: first, to renew orchestral music by imbuing it with a “deeper connection with the poetic art,” and second, to emancipate the symphony from the “formalistic straitjacket” of Sonata form. 3 Liszt intentionally and unashamedly pushed all kinds of musical boundaries, such as testing the limits of illustrating programmatic elements in music, pushing diatonic harmony to its breaking point, and radically altering the Classical conception of form. Liszt’s Symphonic Poems were divisive, “alternatively exalted and damned by an army of critics.” 2 A large number of his hearers disdained and dismissed the new works, which they were unable or unwilling to understand. 1 For over a century after Liszt, the genre grew in popularity among composers and concert- goers, culminating in the Tone-Poems of Richard Strauss. Liszt’s works were an essential, perhaps even the most important, landmark in the development of Programme music and contemporary orchestral literature. The crown jewel of Liszt’s creations was the Symphonic Poem, a new genre of orchestral music he pioneered in order to breathe new life into the orchestral repertory and exemplify all that he believed Zukunftsmusik ought to be. At the forefront of the avant-garde was Franz Liszt, piano virtuoso-turned-composer who strove to carry music into its next stage of development. A group of musicians claiming to represent Zukunftsmusik - the “music of the future” - emerged, leaving a firestorm of controversy in its wake. Among its most important topics of debate were the war between Programmatic and Absolute Music and the Romantics’ treatment of form. The Romantic Era of music was filled with turbulent chaos as composers and critics alike quarreled bitterly over how music ought to be composed and performed.
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