Generally don't like showoffs, prima donnas and egomaniacs.
(Had a low quality weekend spent mostly negotiating contractual provisions with a couple of the worst ones I have seen in 8 years of practice).
Was therefore surprised to find myself moved by the quiet tender, non-bombastic nature of the Liszt pieces played at this year's Piano Festival. These are the rarer Liszt pieces which I am glad French pianist Cyprien Katsaris chose to play.
Am curious now to learn more about Liszt's symphonic poems. He apparently was always having a great urge to set music to poetry. (Funny, I always feel like I have the urge to do the opposite). Liszt wrote a hauntingly beautiful piano piece based on the poem by French poet Lamartine, my favorite piece during the Friday night concert.
(a paraphrase of the French poem, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, A Benediction of God in Solitude)
What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song
whose first solemn note is sounded by death?
Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart,but what mortal is there,
over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm,
dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar?
What soul thus cruelly wounded does not at times try
to dream away the recollection of such storms in the solitude of country life?
It was almost as if Liszt made the piano kneel down and sing those words.
(Had a low quality weekend spent mostly negotiating contractual provisions with a couple of the worst ones I have seen in 8 years of practice).
Was therefore surprised to find myself moved by the quiet tender, non-bombastic nature of the Liszt pieces played at this year's Piano Festival. These are the rarer Liszt pieces which I am glad French pianist Cyprien Katsaris chose to play.
Am curious now to learn more about Liszt's symphonic poems. He apparently was always having a great urge to set music to poetry. (Funny, I always feel like I have the urge to do the opposite). Liszt wrote a hauntingly beautiful piano piece based on the poem by French poet Lamartine, my favorite piece during the Friday night concert.
(a paraphrase of the French poem, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, A Benediction of God in Solitude)
What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song
whose first solemn note is sounded by death?
Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart,but what mortal is there,
over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm,
dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar?
What soul thus cruelly wounded does not at times try
to dream away the recollection of such storms in the solitude of country life?
It was almost as if Liszt made the piano kneel down and sing those words.
