The two concertos are perfect works of their kind, unexcelled in brilliancy of treatment of both the orchestra and the piano, and that in E-flat major full of musical beauty. Both are free in form and rhapsodical in character, effusions of music at once passionate and poetical. That in A major loses by somewhat too free a looseness of form. Even after careful study it cannot but seem rambling.
The sonata in B minor is perhaps Liszt’s boldest experiment in original music for the pianoforte alone. One says experiment quite intentionally, because the work shows as a whole more ingenuity than inspiration, is rather an invention than a creation. There are measures of great beauty, pages of factitious development. At times one finds a nobility of utterance, at others a paucity of ideas.
As to the themes, most of them are cleverly devised from three motives, given in the introduction. One of these is a heavy, descending scale (lento assai); another a sort of volplane of declamatory octaves which plunge downward the distance of a diminished seventh, rise a third, and down a minor seventh again through a triplet; the third a sort of drum figure (forte marcato). The initial statement of these motives is impressive; but it is followed by a sort of uninteresting music building which is, unhappily, to be found in great quantity throughout the whole piece. This is no more than a meaningless repetition of a short phrase or figure, on successive degrees of the scale or on successive notes of harmonic importance. Here in the introduction, for example, is a figure which consists of a chord of the diminished seventh on an off beat of the measure, followed by the downward arpeggio of a triad. This figure is repeated five times without any change but one of pitch; and it is so short and the repetitions so palpable that one feels something of the irritation stirred by the reiterated boasting of the man who is always about to do something.
The long work spins itself out page after page with the motives of the introduction in various forms and this sort of sparring for time. There is no division into separate movements, yet there are clear sections. These may be briefly touched upon. Immediately after the introduction there is a fine-sounding phrase in which one notices the volplane motive (right hand) and the drum motive (left hand). It is only two measures long, yet is at once repeated three times, once in B minor, twice in E minor. Then follow measures of the most trite music building. The phrases are short and without the slightest distinction, and the ceaseless repetition is continued so inexorably that one may almost hear in the music a desperate asthmatic struggle for breath. One is relieved of it after two or three pages by a page of the falling scale motive under repeated octaves and chords.
There is next a new theme, which seems to be handled like the second theme in the classical sonata form, but leads into a long section of recitative character, in which the second and third motives carry the music along to a singing theme, literally an augmentation of the drum motive. This is later hung with garlands of the ready-made variety, and then gives way to a treatment of the volplane motive in another passage of short breathing. The succeeding pages continue with this motive, brilliantly but by no means unusually varied, and there is a sort of stamping towards a climax, beginning incalzando. But this growth of noise is coarse-grained, even though the admirer may rightly say that it springs from one of the chief motives of the piece. It leads to a passage made up of the pompous second theme and a deal of recitative; but after this there comes a section in F-sharp major of very great beauty, and the quasi adagio is hauntingly tender and intimate. These two pages in the midst of all the noise and so much that must be judged commonplace will surely seem to many the only ones worthy of a great creative musician.
After them comes more grandiose material, with that pounding of chords for noise one remembers at the end of Thalberg’s fantasia on ‘Moses,’ then a sort of dying away of the music which again has beauty. A double fugue brings us back to a sort of restatement of the first sections after the introduction, with a great deal of repetition, scantness of breath, pompousness, and brilliant scoring. Just before the end there is another mention of the lovely measures in F-sharp major. There is a short epilogue, built on the three motives of the introduction.
This sonata is a big work. It is broadly planned, sonorous and heavy. It has the fire of Byron, too, and there is something indisputably imposing about it. But like a big sailing vessel with little cargo it carries a heavy ballast; and though this ballast is necessary to the balance and safety of the ship, it is without intrinsic value.
In view of Liszt’s great personal influence, of his service rendered to the public both as player and conductor, of his vast musical knowledge, his enthusiasms and his prodigious skill with the keyboard, one must respect his compositions, especially those for the pianoforte with which we have been dealing. Therefore, though when measured by the standards of Bach, Mozart and Chopin they cannot but fall grievously short, one must admit that such a standard is only one of many, and furthermore that perhaps Liszt’s music may have itself set a new standard. Certainly in many ways it is superlative. It is in part the loudest and the fastest music that has been written for the piano, and as such stands as an achievement in virtuosity which was not before, and has not since been, paralleled. Also it is in part the most fiery and the most overpowering of pianoforte music. It is the most sensational, as well, with all the virtues that sensationalism may hold.
These are, indeed, its proved greatness, and chief of them is a direct and forceful appeal to the general public. It needs no training of the ear to enjoy or to appreciate Liszt’s music. Merely to hear it is to undergo its forceful attraction. Back of it there stands Liszt, the pianist and the virtuoso, asserting his power in the world of men and women. However much or little he may be an artist, he is ever the hero of pianoforte music. So it seems fitting to regard him last as composer of nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, veritably epics in music from the life of a fiery, impetuous people. Rhythms, melodies, and even harmonies are the growth of the soil of Hungary. They belonged to the peasant before Liszt took them and made them thunderous by his own power. What he added to them, like what he added to airs from favorite operas, may well seem of stuff as elemental as the old folk-songs themselves: torrents and hurricanes of sound, phenomena of noise. The results are stupendous, and in a way majestic.