A Liszt work which we seldom hear is "Chöre zu Herder's 'Entfesselte Prometheus,'" which was composed and performed in Weimar in 1850.
On August 25 of that year there was a monument unveiled to Johann Gottfried Herder in Weimar, and the memory of the "apostle of humanity" was also celebrated in the theatre. This accounts for the composition of the symphonic poem Prometheus, which served as an overture to these choruses, written for voices and orchestra. Richard Pohl has put the latter into shape for solitary performance in the concert room.
Prometheus sits manacled on the rock, but the fury of his rebellion is over. Resolutely he awaits the decree of fate. At this point the Liszt work takes up the narrative. The Titan is soliloquising, while man, aided by the gift of fire, is calmly possessing the world. The elemental spirits look enviously at the power of man and turn to Prometheus with plaints; the Daughters of the Sea lament that the holy peace of the sea is disturbed by man, who sails the water imperiously. Prometheus answers Okeanus philosophically that everything belongs to every one.
Then the chorus of the Tritons glorifies the socialistic Titan with "Heil Prometheus." This dies away to make room for the grumbling of All-Mother Erda and her dryads, who bring charge against the fire giver. An answer comes from the bucolic chorus of reapers and their brothers the vintagers, who chant the praise of "Monsieur" Bacchus.
From the under world comes the sound of strife, and Hercules arises as victor. Prometheus recognises him as the liberator, and the Sandow of mythology breaks the Titan's fetters and slays the hovering eagle of Zeus. The freed Prometheus turns to the rocks on which he has sat prisoner so long and asks that in gratitude for his liberty a paradise arise there. Pallas Athene respects the wish, and out of the naked rock sprouts an olive tree.
A chorus of the Invisible Ones invites Prometheus to attend before the throne of Themis. She intercedes in his behalf against his accusers, and the Chorus of Humanity celebrates her judgment in the hymn which closes "Heil Prometheus! Der Menschheit Heil!" Some of the thematic material for these choruses and orchestral interludes is borrowed from the symphonic poem Prometheus.
Liszt wrote a preface to Héroïde Funèbre, his eighth poem (1849-1850; 1856.) Among other things he declares that "Everything may change in human societies—manners and cult, laws and ideas; sorrow remains always one and the same, it remains what it has been from the beginning of time. It is for art to throw its transfiguring veil over the tomb of the brave—to encircle with its golden halo the dead and the dying, in order that they may be envied by the living." Liszt incorporated with this poem a fragment from his Revolutionary Symphony outlined in 1830. Hungaria (1854; 1857) and Hamlet (1858; 1861) the ninth and tenth poems are not of marked interest or novel character—that is when compared to their predecessors. There is a so-called poem, From the Cradle to the Grave, the thirteenth in the series, one which did not take seriously. It is quite brief. But let us consider the eleventh and twelfth of the series.
THE BATTLE OF THE HUNS
Liszt's Hunnenschlacht was suggested by Wilhelm von Kaulbach's mural painting in the staircase-hall of the New Museum in Berlin. It was conceived in Munich in November, 1856, and written in 1857. When completed, it was put into rehearsal at Weimar in October, 1857, and performed in April, 1858. Its first performance in Boston, was under Mr. Theodore Thomas in 1872.
The picture which suggested this composition to Liszt shows the city of Rome in the background; before it is a battle-field, strewn with corpses which are seen to be gradually reviving, rising up, and rallying, while among them wander wailing and lamenting women. At the heads of two ghostly armies are respectively Attila—borne aloft on a shield by Huns, and wielding a scourge—and Theodoric with his two sons, behind whom is raised the banner of the cross.