Symphonic Poems (Liszt) - Background

Background

According to music critic and historian Harold C. Schonberg, the advent of the Industrial Revolution brought changes to the early 19th-century lifestyles of the working masses. The lower and middle classes began to take an interest in the arts, which previously had been enjoyed mostly by the clergy and aristocracy. In the 1830s, concert halls were few, and orchestras served mainly in the production of operas—symphonic works were considered far lower in importance. However, the European music scene underwent a transformation in the 1840s. Public concerts became an institution, and were performed at a rapidly increasing number of venues. Programs often ran over three hours, "even if the content was thin: two or more symphonies, two overtures, vocal and instrumental numbers, duets, a concerto." Roughly half of the presented music was vocal in nature. Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn or Ludwig van Beethoven usually opened or concluded concerts, and "while these works were revered as models of great music, they were ultimately less popular than the arias and scenes from operas and oratorios that stood prominently in the middle of these concerts."

The future of the symphony genre was coming into doubt. Musicologist Mark Evan Bonds writes, "Even symphonies by well-known composers of the early 19th century as Méhul, Rossini, Cherubini, Hérold, Czerny, Clementi, Weber and Moscheles were perceived in their own time as standing in the symphonic shadow of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or some combination of the three." While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and 30s, "there was a growing sense that these works were aesthetically far inferior to Beethoven's.... The real question was not so much whether symphonies could still be written, but whether the genre could continue to flourish and grow as it had over the previous half-century in the hands of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. On this count, there were varying degrees of skepticism but virtually no real optimism." Hector Berlioz was the only composer "able to grapple successfully with Beethoven's legacy." However, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Niels Gade also achieved successes with their symphonies, putting at least a temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead. Regardless, composers increasingly turned to the "more compact form" of the concert overture "as a vehicle within which to blend musical, narrative and pictoral ideas"; examples included Mendelssohn's overtures A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) and The Hebrides (1830).

Franz Liszt, a Hungarian composer, had attempted to write a Revolutionary Symphony as early as 1830; however, his focus for the early part of his adult life was mostly on his performing career. By 1847, Liszt was famous throughout Europe as a virtuoso pianist. "Lisztomania" swept across Europe, the emotional charge of his recitals making them "more like séances than serious musical events", and the reaction of many of his listeners could be characterized as hysterical. Musicologist Alan Walker says, "Liszt was a natural phenomenon, and people were swayed by him.... With his mesmeric personality and long mane of flowing hair, he created a striking stage presence. And there were many witnesses to testify that his playing did indeed raise the mood of an audience to a level of mystical ecstasy." The demands of concert life "reached exponential proportions" and "every public appearance led to demands for a dozen others." Liszt desired to compose music, such as large-scale orchestral works, but lacked the time to do so as a travelling virtuoso. In September 1847, Liszt gave his last public recital as a paid artist and announced his retirement from the concert platform. He settled in Weimar, where he had been made its honorary music director in 1842, to work on his compositions.

Weimar was a small town that held many attractions for Liszt. Two of Germany's greatest men of letters, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, had both lived there. As one of the cultural centers of Germany, Weimar boasted a theater and an orchestra plus its own painters, poets and scientists. The University of Jena was also nearby. Most importantly, the town's patroness was the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. "This triple alliance of court, theater and academia was difficult to resist." The town also received its first railway line in 1848, which gave Liszt reasonably quick access from there to the rest of Germany.