Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, 3ème année – Cedric Tiberghien

   in Piano International (Mar, 2019)
The third book of Années de pélèrinage tells of a journey from exuberance to bitterness. Despised rather than fêted in his old age, Liszt’s dark-hued late works were viewed as the product of senility, their far-reaching prophecy incomprehensible to his contemporaries. The death of his children, ill health and the failure to secure a longed-for marriage contributed to his desolation and spiritual upheaval, graphically caught in music that readily erupts from introspection into a fist-shaking violence (the climaxes of the two threnodies) or a sardonic alternative to former optimism (the Bagatelle sans tonalité). La lugubre gondola is a premonition of Wagner’s death and the opening chime of ‘Angelus!’ is worlds …