The Virtuoso Liszt

One of the concert series at the university is called "The Virtuoso Liszt". Last night Makmiller, Ed, Amir and I attended Programme One of Charles Foreman at the piano playing Liszt.

Forman had done my homework for me.

Attached to the programme was a five page, single-spaced essay on "The Great Liszt". There was some biographical material, but the essay was mostly notes about the pieces we were to hear (ie something on each of the six Pagannini studies in the last half of the concert).

The programme started with the Hungarian Rhapsody No 2. It was so much fun a couple of times I thought I would burst out laughing.

The insert in the programme listed the four stumbling blocks to having an appreciation of Liszt's works:

1. ignorance of the repetoire -- When do we ever hear a group of Liszt's songs.

2. bad performances (by others turn us off -- not Forman's performance)

3. eclecticism -- titles in French, motifs in German, divergent musical styles

4. rhetorical style -- all of the Romantics were a bit long-winded,such as Schuman, Berlioz, and Tchaikovsky.

Rather than attach the five page essay to this post, I send you a picture of Liszt's hands.

How ghoulish is that!

I must be looking forward to Halloween.

Arta