Version 2 represents Liszt’s final, definitive thoughts (ie he decided his intentions were better realised by cutting the ‘De profundis’ material) to form, in this writer’s opinion, a tone poem that expresses itself more powerfully with greater economical means. Why? Despite the two versions having many sections in common, they are two distinct and different works. This survey is concerned principally with the second version. Only the first five variations are so numbered in the score but it is possible to identify over 30 different treatments of the theme (or part of the theme) by the piano or other instruments in the course of the work, often variants within the variations. The music is a sequence of variations on the theme, interspersed with three cadenzas, a development section and a coda. Berlioz quotes it in his Symphonie fantastique (1830), the premiere of which was attended by Liszt. Liszt was not the first – and by no means the last – to use the ‘Dies irae’ (‘Day of Wrath’, used for centuries in the Roman Catholic rite of the Mass for the Dead). Though there are several other editions, notably by Liszt pupils Alexander Siloti, Bernhard Stavenhagen and Eugen d’Albert, it is Liszt’s second version that is most frequently heard today, It was dedicated to his son-in-law Hans von Bülow and it was he who gave the first performance of this version on April 15, 1865, in The Hague with an orchestra conducted by the Dutch composer Johannes Verhulst. It was issued with the title Todtentanz (Danse macabre) – Paraphrase über ‘Dies irae’, and published in 1865, the same year in which Liszt’s versions for solo piano and two pianos were published. This dispenses with all of the ‘De profundis’ material and other sections never sanctioned for publication by the composer. Liszt continued tinkering with the score between 18, when a second version appeared. Without going into great detail, basically there exist two versions: the first, dated October 21, 1849, with the title Fantasie für Pianoforte und Orchester was not published until 1919 (in an edition by Busoni) it is generally known as the ‘De profundis’ version because it incorporates the plainsong setting of Psalm 130 (‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord’). The gestation of Totentanz was protracted and complex. Totentanz, a series of variations on the Latin plainsong chant of the ‘Dies irae’, can be considered ‘the spiritual sister’ of these ‘Years of Travel’ (indeed, Variation 5 puts one in mind of the central section of the Dante Sonata). From this period of Liszt’s prolific output came early versions of the 12 Transcendental Études, the Six Études de Paganini and the first two volumes of Années de pèlerinage, and much else besides. The first of these was their daughter Cosima, later to become the wife of Hans von Bülow and latterly of Richard Wagner. The couple had eloped in 1835, leaving Paris for Geneva and thence, for the next few years, travelling through Switzerland and Italy absorbing scenery, places, literature and painting, while producing three illegitimate children. It was the sight of this, it is said, that first inspired the composition of his Totentanz – Danse macabre, though it would not appear in its final form for nearly three decades. Five hundred years later, one of those who came to the Camposanto to admire the work was Franz Liszt in the company of his mistress the Countess Marie d’Agoult. Once attributed to Orcagna, nowadays to Buonamico Buffalmacco or, by some scholars, to Francesco Traini, it was created in 1338‑39. Among its murals is an impressive fresco entitled Il trionfo della Morte: ‘The Triumph of Death’. The piece is based on the medieval plainsong Dies irae in five large variations with many smaller ones incorporated, and is one of many examples of the Mephistophelean side of Liszt’s musical character, as well as a testing study in the art of making extreme technical demands serve solid musical purposes.Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli, also known as the Piazza del Duomo, contains the Cathedral, the Baptistry, the Campanile (aka the Leaning Tower) – and the Camposanto Monumentale. There are also one or two notes that will sound ‘wrong’ to the unsuspecting – Liszt changed some of the harmonies and, in one striking place (at the first appearance of the subsidiary theme from bar 466), the melody from the orchestral version. In the passages where the orchestra was silent, Liszt took over the solo part without alteration, but for the other sections he contrived some rather ingenious solutions and alternatives. The version for piano and orchestra of Totentanz has often been described as the best of Liszt’s works for that medium, and it is surprising that the piano solo version, which is extremely well done (it is slightly shorter at the very end), is so rarely encountered.
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