Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Volume 3: Demonic and Divine
Kenneth Hamilton (piano)
rec. 2023-25, Cardiff University School of Music, UK
Prima Facie PFCD251/252 [74+75]

The third instalment in Kenneth Hamilton’s thematic survey of Franz Liszt’s piano music plunges fully into the composer’s Romantic imagination, tracing a vivid trajectory between the Diabolic and the Divine. The earlier volumes were devoted to Death and Transfiguration and to Salon and Stage.

To be sure, a few pieces sit between the Sacred and the Infernal. For example, La lugubre gondola likely arose from Liszt’s premonition of Wagner’s death, whilst he watched funeral processions glide along the Venetian canals before that event in 1883. Its suitably desolate tone is somehow morbidly beautiful. Equally ambivalent is the brilliantly played Toccata, really a hellish study to perform. And who is to say what the child being rocked in the Wiegenlied (Cradle Song) will become: a Saint or a Sinner? The dedicatee was Arthur Friedheim, one of Liszt most promising students, who became one of the most successful concert pianists of his age. And consider Lohengrin’s Reproof of Elsa, his chastisement for breaking the sole condition of his aid and his love, the Frageverbot, forbidding her to ask his name, origin, or nature. Where does it truly belong: among the accursed or the blessed?

More apposite are the Cavatina and the Reminiscences of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable. This grand opera from 1831 tells the story of Robert, Duke of Normandy, who is the son of the Devil. Disguised and under the name of Bertram, the Devil manipulates Robert, leading him to gamble away his fortune and miss a tournament for the hand of Princess Isabelle. In the end, Robert rejects Bertram’s pact, saves his soul and marries Isabelle.

Liszt based the Cavatina on the opera’s top hit, Isabelle’s Robert, you whom I love. He designed it as an introduction to the Reminiscences built around the Infernal Waltz. This remains one of Liszt’s great warhorses. We hear it in a revised form in a premiere recording. Yet even here the demonic does not seem too satanic.

The booklet tells us that the Scherzo and March Wilde Jagd (Liszt reused the title in one of his Grandes études) could have been composed by “a more malevolent version of Mendelssohn”. Russell Sherman, the American classical pianist, educator and author, once asked: “Does it demand this many forces to capture a puny fox? What are they hunting here, dinosaurs or the Abominable Snowman?” It is certainly a wild number, beautifully executed.

If one sees The Seven Deadly Sins as Demonic, then this is where the Fantasy-Piece – Liebesszene and Fortunas Kugel – from Adalbert von Goldschmidt’s  eponymous oratorio fits in. This would appear to be a sequence of tableaux rather than a plotted story. The reference books suggest that it is in the Wagnerian mould. The two movements presented here are usually played together, with the Love Scene nodding towards Tristan and Isolde and Fortune’s Crystal Ball having echoes of the Valkyries. It is new to me, and I was impressed.

The major work on the first disc is Ferrucio Busoni’s monumental transcription of Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam from Meyerbeer’s Le prophète. It was originally a vast, three‑part drama for organ, built from Meyerbeer’s chorale in Le prophète. It moves from improvisatory fantasy into a serene and meditative Adagio, and ends with a massive fugue and triumphant conclusion. It is often regarded as a massive tone poem rather than a mere transcription. In Meyerbeer’s opera, Ad nos, ad salutarem undam is the Anabaptists’ hymn, a seemingly holy call to healing waters. In the drama, it serves as their seductive and manipulative summons disguised as religious purity. So, it is Demonic, in one sense.

Evil certainly clings to the Webernesque Unstern! (Dark Star). This anguished piece is not one I have warmed to. The textbooks explain that much of the effect is gained through Liszt’s extensive use of the Tritone, or six semitones (e.g., from C to F#). It was traditionally known as the Devil’s Interval, due to its tense, unstable sound.

The final Fiendish number is the Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Liszt based it on a specific event in Lenau’s narrative poem about Faust. It traces the steps of Mephistopheles, a powerful demon in German folklore, who brings Faust to a peasant dance. The devil’s fiddling incites the crowd into a frenzied, ecstatic dance. The spell is only broken by a nightingale’s brief melody. The crowd disperses; Faust and the innkeeper’s daughter mysteriously vanish into the woodland. This virtuosic masterwork calls on formidable pianism, including “untiring broken octaves, granitic chord playing and accurate large skips”.

Let us turn to the hallowed music. The first disc opens with Invocation from Harmonies poétiques et religieuses,whichappeared in at least two iterations. This grandiose and optimistic reflection seems to call on the listener to seek God in Nature. It is prefaced by the poet Lamartine’s words, translated here as “Rise, voice of my soul, / With the dawn, with the night.”

Further excerpts from this sequenceare played. The Pater Noster develops, a plain, choral-style setting that captures the prayer’s solemn and humble essence. On the second disc, the subdued and expressive Andante lagrimoso is quite lovely. The Cantique d’amour is a passionate love song. Once again, Liszt creates a highly charged portrait of romance. Lastly, the bleak Miserere d’après Palestrina uses grand arpeggios and choral harmonies to conjure an enormous, cathedral-like sound in the style of the Renaissance masters.

The Mozartian Sancta Dorothea – from the final years of Liszt’s life – may be a brief meditation on the life of this obscure fourth-century martyr. Interestingly, St Dorothy is the patron saint of gardeners. I find the work quite boring and bleak, but one way or another it manages to catch a sense of devotion.

St Francis of Assisi was undoubtedly a holy man, renowned for his rapport with the animals and birds, Liszt has captured this in a striking bit of programme music. The first Legend explores St Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds; the onomatopoeic twittering of our feathered friends frames a central Hymn of Praise. The second Legend creates a dramatic image of St Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves. The story goes that he was denied passage on a boat travelling across the Straits of Messina, heading towards Sicily. So, he simply floated across standing on his cloak. Liszt screws up the tension, mimics the storm, and closes with a quiet benediction.

Kenneth Hamilton is a Scottish pianist and writer celebrated for Romantic‑era repertoire, especially Liszt, Alkan and Busoni. Known for his scholarly insight, he combines international concert activity with influential publications such as After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. His acclaimed recordings range from Bach to Ronald Stevenson. For further details, see his page on the Prima Facie website.

The soloist’s programme notes give a detailed introduction to the recital. The cover features an anonymous painting of Faust, Marguerite and Mephistopheles. There is information on Hamilton’s approach to Liszt performance. The recorded sound is detailed and immediate. There is biographical information on the soloist. I would have liked the dates of each piece included in the track listing. (Liszt had the annoying – or is it fascinating – habit of making multiple versions of his music.) I have added them, I hope correctly.

The advertising material for this release explains that Kenneth Hamilton’s third Liszt volume is shaped by close study of the composer’s often overlooked interpretative guidance and the testimonies of his pupils. A major catalyst is the recent discovery of Czech pianist August Stradal’s manuscripts. It enabled the first recording of a markedly different late revision of the Fantasy on Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable. The album also incorporates revisions transmitted by Stradal, Kellermann, Friedheim, Göllerich and Stavenhagen to works such as the St Francis Legends, Invocation, and the Scherzo and March. Hamilton refines Busoni’s transcription of the Fantasy and Fugue on “Ad nos” in light of the organ score, and draws on Liszt’s later orchestral writing to enrich the first Mephisto Waltz.

This magnificent recital matches technical expertise with a rare imagination – two essential qualities of any performance of Liszt’s piano music. Let me note a deep historical understanding of the composer’s evolving style, from transcendental bravura to late introspection. Kenneth Hamilton ticks all these boxes.

John France

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Contents
“Invocation” (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, (S173/1) (1848-1853)
Sancta Dorothea” (S187) (1877)
Scherzo and March “Wilde Jagd” (S177) (1851)
La Lugubre Gondola 2 (S200/2) (1882)
Fantasy-Piece (“Liebesszene” and “Fortunas Kugel“) from Adalbert von Goldschmidt‘s (1848-1906) Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins) (S490) (1880)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)/Liszt: “Lohengrins Verweis an Elsa” (S446/3) (1854)
Pater Noster” (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses) (S173/5) (1848-1853)
Liszt/Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924): Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam” from Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète (S259) (Busoni Transcription, 1910)
Cavatina from Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable (S412a) (c.1841)
Reminiscences of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable (S413: revised version, 1885-6, first recording)
Two Legends: 1. St Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds (S175/1) (1862-1863)
Two Legends: 2. St Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves (S175/2) (1862-1863)
Andante Lagrimoso (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, S173/9) (1848-1853)
Cantique d’amour” (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, S173/10) (1848-5183)
Toccata (S197a) (1879)
Wiegenlied (Cradle Song) (for Arthur Friedheim, S198) (1881)
Miserere d’après Palestrina” (from Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, S173/8) (1848-1853)
Unstern!” (Dark Star!) (S208) (1881)
Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (S514) (1859-1862)