FRANZ LISZT : Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Leslie Howard) 2CD (1998) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The abbé Liszt has always been a familiar figure. Even though Liszt took only the four minor orders in 1865, and thus never became a priest (although he was later made Canon of Albano), his preoccupation with religious thought actually goes right back to his teenage years in Paris, and the subsequent friendship with some of the important religious writers of the day. The contradictions between Liszt’s perceived lifestyle and his devout intentions were a regular subject for speculation and even ridicule, but any proper investigation of Liszt’s life and letters reveals a deeply thoughtful and complex man, whose religious sensibilities must be taken absolutely seriously. His efforts to produce a new and viable language for church music, incorporating the language of the music drama, earned him as many enemies as friends, but the actual range of style of his religious music encompasses everything from the dramatic gesture to a return to an austere simplicity echoing a much earlier age. The piano works of a religious character show the same variety, and a good few of them are transcriptions of his own choral pieces. Much of this music has been completely neglected, even to the point of not being published until a century after the composer’s death, and in this respect the choral versions have suffered worse than the piano pieces. Recent revivals of some of the large-scale choral works may hint at a change in favour, and perhaps some of the rarer pieces in this collection will eventually join the repertoire alongside the two undisputed masterpieces: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude and Funérailles.
Liszt made several settings of all or part of the Ave Maria, and all six piano works of this title are included here. Fortunately, they are each in a different key, which helps with identification! The E major piece is not connected with a vocal work, and, although the rhythm fits the opening of the text the ecclestiastical connection remains general. The subtitle ‘The Bells of Rome’ may not be Liszt’s, but the bell effects are specifically indicated. The piece was composed for the piano method of Lebert and Stark. The Ave Maria (d’Arcadelt) was issued with the Alleluia, although the key is really the only thing the pieces share. The Alleluia is based on material from the choral work Cantico del sol di San Francesco d’Assisi, whilst the Ave Maria is Jacques Arcadelt (c1505–1568) twice removed. Louis Dietsch (1808–1865) produced the piece in 1842 as an Arcadelt discovery, but was subsequently shown to have adapted the text of the Ave Maria to Arcadelt’s three-voice chanson ‘Nous voyons que les hommes’. Liszt added the rocking accompaniment in his transcriptions for piano and for organ. The D major Ave Maria was one of nine motets issued in 1871. This transcription (also the one for organ) is very straightforward, but the D flat version is extended with a florid variation. The tiny G major piece is adapted from a late vocal work, and the B flat version in the Harmonies poétiques is adapted from Liszt’s first choral setting of the text.

The Ave maris stella exists in three vocal and two instrumental versions, and the text is laid out above the latter. The piano version is quite elaborately coloured compared to the choral original, but the mood remains restrained.
More notes of Leslie Howard