Franz LISZT (1811 - 1886)
Wagner Paraphrases
1. Am stillen Herd from Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg S448 [8:32]
2. Spinnerlied from Der fliegende Holländer S440
[6:22]
3. Pilgerchor from Tannhäuser S443i [6:51]
4. O du mein holder Abendstern from Tannhäuser
S444 [6:51]
5. Einzug der Gäste auf Wartburg from
Tannhäuser S445/1a [10:59]
6. Elsas Brautzug zum Münster from Lohengrin
S445/2 [8:26]
7. Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde S447
[7:06]
Richard WAGNER (1813 - 1883)
8. Albumblatt für Frau Betty Schott WWV 108 [4:33]
9. Ankunft den schwarzen Schwänen WWV 95 [3:53]
10. Albumblatt ’In das Album der Fürstin M’
WWV 94 [3:09]
Asher Fisch (piano)
rec. Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk, UK, 20-22 October 2011
MELBA MR301141 [67:07]
In total Liszt composed fourteen paraphrases on Wagner’s music
between 1849 and 1871. Half of them can be heard on this disc, complemented
by three small pieces by Wagner himself. Some years ago Asher Fisch
conducted the complete Ring cycle at performances in Adelaide,
performances that were recorded and issued by Melba and were
enthusiastically received by reviewers, including myself. Besides some superb singing from Stuart
Skelton, Lisa Gasteen, Deborah Riedel, John Bröcheler and others it was
the conducting of Mr Fisch that made a lot of us take down the Thesaurus to
find suitable superlatives when ‘idiomatic’,
‘superb’ and ‘excellent’ felt bland and uninspiring.
Now comes this disc as a kind of sequel, in time for the forthcoming
bicentenary celebrations next year. Again Fisch proves that he is very much
inside the idiom as a pianist as well. Question is whether this is a Wagner
disc or a Liszt disc. Wagner provides the raw-material but Liszt is not
content to transcribe the music to a piano reduction, along the lines of his
transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies. Instead he often amends the
material and changes harmonies, and that is what a paraphrase is. The New
Penguin English Dictionary (2000) defines paraphrase as ‘a
restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another
form’ which implies that the ‘paraphraser’ has great
freedom to treat the material according to his/her personality. It was quite
common during the 19th century that pianists borrowed material
from popular operas and made their own ‘elaborations’, often to
show off their technical prowess; Liszt was no exception. The composers,
very often, didn’t mind since these show-pieces made the music better
known and people went to the opera house to hear the original. This was long
before the recording of music was possible. Liszt, more than most of his
competitors, was a great composer in his own right and many of his
paraphrases are valuable as compositions. He paraphrased Verdi, Bellini,
Donizetti, Gounod, Meyerbeer and Mozart but when he approached
Wagner’s music it was with a different aim: ‘modest propaganda
on the inadequate piano for the sublime genius of Wagner’. Wagner was
enthusiastic.
It is impossible to convey a sense of the colours of Wagner’s
marvellous orchestral scores on a piano but Liszt manages surprisingly well.
Today every Wagner-lover knows the orchestral sounds of Wagner and can
easily conjure up from memory what it sounds like. For the 19th
century listener with no knowledge of Wagner, sometimes with little
experience of orchestral music at all, this must have been a tougher nut to
crack. Even though Liszt couldn’t convey the colours he could create
the atmosphere, and this he does constantly throughout this programme. The
mighty crescendo of the Pilgrim Chorus from Tannhäuser is
one such instance, the frail and transparent Song to the Evening Star
from the same opera is another. Truly stunning is the third excerpt from
this opera, The Entrance of the Guests, where the trumpet fanfares
blow the brains out. I noticed that I automatically crouched in my chair.
There are traces of bombast in the Meistersinger excerpt, but I have
heard more blatant examples of this in other works by Liszt. By and large it
is the many delicacies of ‘instrumentation’ that stand out and
linger in one’s memory.
Wagner was allegedly not a very accomplished pianist but he did in
fact compose some music for the instrument, mostly quite early in his
career. The three short pieces that are fillers here are however from his
mature life. The first of them, the Albumblatt für Frau Betty
Schott was written as late as 1875 when he was past sixty. Betty was the
wife of Wagner’s publisher Franz Schott. Ankunft bei den schwarzen
Schwänen (Arrival among the black Swans) from 1861 also need an
explanation. That year Wagner stayed as guest in the house of a Count
Albrecht Pourtalès in Paris. In the garden was a pool with two black
swans. Wagner became very fond of the birds and wrote this little piece to
the Countess. There are echoes of Tristan und Isolde, which he had
just finished at the time. From the same year comes the last work.
Fürstin M was Princess Pauline von Metternich, married to the Habsburg
ambassador to Paris. The Princess had helped Wagner to organize the first
production of Tannhäuser in Paris. These pieces are delightful
little encores to this delightful programme. Asher Fisch was previously
unknown to me as a pianist but his playing is as delightful as the music and
Melba’s recording is in the demonstration class.
Göran Forsling
Fisch’s playing is as delightful as the music.