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40-460: Liszt noted on the sonata's manuscript that it was completed on 2 February 1853, but he had composed an earlier version by 1849. At this point in his life, Liszt's career as a traveling virtuoso had almost entirely subsided, as Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein had influenced him to concentrate on composing rather than performing. Liszt settled in Weimar in 1848 where he devoted to composition, and live

80-441: A 21st-century virtuosi is primarily a performing musician. As virtuosic playing has gained popularity over the centuries, more exciting music has ingrained itself into the culture in unique ways. Many music pedagogues emphasize technique in private teaching as a way to approach modern, virtuosic repertoire. Additionally, much of classical music that becomes popular among non-musicians tends to lean into difficult, flashy styles. In

120-461: A comfortable lifestyle, composing, and occasionally performing, entirely by choice rather than necessity. The Sonata was dedicated to Robert Schumann , in return for Schumann's dedication of his Fantasie in C major, Op.17 (published 1839) to Liszt. A copy of the work arrived at Schumann's house in May 1854, after he had entered Endenich sanatorium. Pianist and composer Clara Schumann did not perform

160-714: A degree in that field, but his amateur study of music eventually led to writing music reviews for small town newspapers, then the Wiener Musik-Zeitung and eventually the Neue Freie Presse , where he was music critic until retirement. Whilst still a student, in 1845, he met with Richard Wagner in Marienbad ; the composer, noting the young man's enthusiasm, invited him to Dresden to hear his opera Tannhäuser ; here Hanslick also met with Robert Schumann . In 1854 he published his influential book On

200-482: A musician was considered a virtuoso by being an accomplished composer , theorist , or maestro , rather than a skilled performer. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the word shifted in meaning, and many musicians applied it without considering merit, sometimes to themselves. Sébastien de Brossard , in his Dictionnaire de Musique ( Paris , 1703), approached the word virtuoso by its Latin root virtu emphasizing exceptional training, especially in theory. This position

240-516: A popularly performed and extensively analyzed piece ever since. Camille Saint-Saëns , a close friend of Liszt, made a two-piano arrangement of the Sonata in 1914, but it was never published in his lifetime because of rights issues. It was first published in 2004 by Édition Durand in Paris, edited by Sabrina Teller Ratner. According to a letter from Saint-Saëns to Jacques Durand , dated 23 August 1914,

280-486: A regular occurrence. Eduard Hanslick Eduard Hanslick (11 September 1825 – 6 August 1904) was an Austrian music critic , aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the Neue Freie Presse from 1864 until the end of his life. His best known work, the 1854 treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen ( On the Musically Beautiful ),

320-408: A rotational three-movement work with a double exposition and recapitulation. An average performance of the sonata lasts approximately 30 minutes. While its distinct movements: allegro, adagio, scherzo and finale are combined into one, the entire work is encompassed within an overarching sonata form — exposition, development, and recapitulation. Liszt effectively composed a sonata within a sonata, which

360-431: A scherzo. Each of the sections are examples of Classical forms, which means that this piece is one of the first instances of Double-function form , a musical piece which has two classical forms happening at the same time; one containing the other. Already in 1851 Liszt experimented with a non-programmatic "four-movements-in-one" form in an extended work for piano solo called Grosses Concert-Solo . This piece, which in 1865

400-480: Is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts , music, singing , playing a musical instrument , or composition. This word also refers to a person who has cultivated appreciation of artistic excellence, either as a connoisseur or collector . The plural forms of virtuoso is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation virtuosos , and

440-414: Is part of the work's uniqueness, and he was economical with his thematic material. The first page contains three motive ideas that provide the basis for nearly all that follows, with the ideas being transformed throughout. The first theme is a descending scale marked Lento assai ; full of ominous undertow. It reappears at crucial points in the work's structure, especially in the coda. After the first theme,

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480-417: Is the performance ability of the musician in question, who is capable of displaying feats of skill well above the average performer. Especially in music, both critics and musicians have mixed opinions on virtuosity. While the skill implied is clearly positive, musicians focused on virtuosity have been criticized for overlooking substance and emotion in favor of raw technical prowess. More commonly applied in

520-1060: The Hofmeister Musikverlag in Leipzig. The Sonata is considered a standard of the piano repertoire. Recordings include performances by Nicholas Angelich , Martha Argerich , Claudio Arrau , Emanuel Ax , Jorge Bolet , Khatia Buniatishvili , Leon Fleisher , Emil Gilels , Hélène Grimaud , Vladimir Horowitz , Paul Lewis , Maurizio Pollini , Sviatoslav Richter , Arthur Rubinstein , Van Cliburn , Yundi Li , Daniil Trifonov , Tamás Vásáry , Yuja Wang , André Watts , Krystian Zimerman , Benjamin Grosvenor , Kenneth Hamilton , Sophia Agranovich , Seong-Jin Cho and Igor Levit . Virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso , Italian: [virˈtwoːzo] or Italian: [virtuˈoːso] ; Late Latin virtuosus ; Latin virtus ; 'virtue', 'excellence' or 'skill')

560-550: The "hammer-blow" motif into a into a grand melodic gesture masked cantando espressivo . The slow movement, an Andante sostenuto in F-sharp major, is the centerpiece of the Sonata. This fully-fledged movement, in compound ternary form, features, in quick succession, a number of themes heard earlier in the Sonata in a tour de force of thematic economy. The recapitulation opens with a fugue in B-flat minor, that can also function as

600-445: The "triviality and exhibitionist talents of the performer" voicing his opinion strongly: "The real dignity of the virtuoso rests solely on the dignity he is able to preserve for creative art; if he or she trifles and toys with this, he casts his honour away. He or she is the intermediary of the artistic idea. " In the nineteenth century, the public beliefs and attitudes surrounding virtuosity in music greatly varied. Many believed that it

640-606: The "true virtuoso", once again emphasizing theory (" der wahre Virtuose "), while describing the "highly gifted musician" (" der glückselige Musicus ") or "performer virtuoso" as having nothing more than practical facility. The concept of virtuosity today is typically associated with flashy, technical performance rather than accomplishments as a composer, theorist, etc. Modern virtuosi are known for fast, exciting works and often for using their talents in spaces like international competitions. While historical virtuosi like Niccolò Paganini and Franz Liszt were performers as well as composers,

680-664: The Beautiful in Music . By this time his interest in Wagner had begun to cool; he had written a disparaging review of the first Vienna production of Lohengrin . From this point on, Hanslick found his sympathies moving away from the so-called 'music of the Future' associated with Wagner and Franz Liszt , and more towards music he conceived as directly descending from the traditions of Mozart , Beethoven and Schumann — in particular

720-468: The German newspaper Nationalzeitung referred to it as "an invitation to hissing and stomping". It took a long time for the Sonata to become commonplace in concert repertoire because of its technical difficulty and negative initial reception due to its status as "new" music. However by the early stages of the twentieth century, the piece had become established as a pinnacle of Liszt's repertoire and has been

760-650: The Romantics . The critic Richard Pohl , of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik , represented the progressive composers of the " Music of the Future ". Being a close friend of Brahms from 1862, Hanslick possibly had some influence on Brahms's composing, often getting to hear new music before it was published. Hanslick saw Wagner's reliance on dramatics and word painting as inimical to the nature of music, which he thought to be expressive solely by virtue of its form, and not through any extra-musical associations. On

800-475: The Sonata by Humphrey Searle . In 1968 the Royal Ballet commissioned a new arrangement, by Gordon Jacob . An organ transcription of the Sonata was made in 1984 by Bernhard Haas . Other transcriptions for organ includes one by Nathan Laube, which was performed in 2022. There is also a transcription of the Sonata for solo cello made by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch in 2013. This has been published by

840-428: The Sonata despite her marriage to Robert Schumann; according to scholar Alan Walker she found it "merely a blind noise". No other work of Liszt's has attracted anywhere near the amount of scholarly attention paid to the Sonata in B minor. It has provoked a wide range of divergent theories from those of its admirers who feel compelled to search for hidden meanings. Possibilities include the following: The complexity of

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880-541: The ballet scene for " The Little Mermaid " is danced near the end of the film. An orchestrated version of the lyrical parts of the Sonata appears in the 1960 Hollywood film of Liszt's life called Song Without End . Frederick Ashton used the Sonata for his 1963 ballet Marguerite and Armand , created for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev , based on " The Lady of the Camellias " by Alexandre Dumas, fils . The original performances used an orchestral transcription of

920-597: The carping critic Beckmesser (whose name was originally to be Veit Hanslich). Hanslick's unpaid lectureship at the University of Vienna led in 1870 to a full professorship in history and aesthetic of music and later to a doctorate honoris causa . Hanslick often served on juries for musical competitions and held a post at the Austrian Ministry of Culture and fulfilled other administrative roles. He retired after writing his memoirs, but still wrote articles on

960-635: The context of the fine arts , the term can also refer to a "master" or "ace" who excels technically within any particular field or area of human knowledge—anyone especially or dazzlingly skilled at what they do. The meaning of virtuoso has its roots in the Italian usage of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, signifying an honorific term reserved for a person distinguished in any intellectual or artistic field. The term evolved with time, simultaneously broadening and narrowing in scope as interpretations went in and out of fashion and debates unraveled. Originally

1000-481: The feminine forms are virtuosa and virtuose . According to Music in the Western civilization by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin : ..."A virtuoso was, originally, a highly accomplished musician, but by the nineteenth century the term had become restricted to performers, both vocal and instrumental, whose technical accomplishments were so pronounced as to dazzle the public." The defining element of virtuosity

1040-573: The label Hungaroton. Heinz Roemheld orchestrated the Sonata which is heard on some 1930s movies, including The Black Cat (1934), starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi , The Raven (1935), as well as the Flash Gordon serials (1936) (Chapters 6–13), Werewolf of London (1936), and Mars Attacks the World (1938). There is an orchestrated excerpt version of the Sonata in the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen starring Danny Kaye where

1080-506: The late 18th century, people began to use the term to describe an instrumentalist or vocalist who pursued a career as a soloist. The tension about the merit of practical virtuosity started to grow at the same time and intensified in the 19th century, only to remain an open debate since then. Franz Liszt , considered one of the greatest of all virtuosos, declared that "virtuosity is not an outgrowth, but an indispensable element of music" ( Gesammelte Schriften , iv, 1855–9). Richard Wagner opposed

1120-566: The most important premieres of the day, up to his death in 1904 in Baden . Hanslick's tastes were conservative; in his memoirs he said that for him musical history really began with Mozart and culminated in Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. He is best remembered today for his critical advocacy of Brahms as against the school of Wagner, an episode in 19th century music history sometimes called the War of

1160-424: The music of Johannes Brahms (who dedicated to him his set of waltzes opus 39 for piano duet ). In 1869, in a revised edition of his essay Jewishness in Music , Wagner attacked Hanslick as 'of gracefully concealed Jewish origin', and asserted that his supposedly Jewish style of criticism was anti-German. It is sometimes claimed that Wagner caricatured Hanslick in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as

1200-846: The other hand, he referred to extra-musicality when he asked, "When you play Chopin's mazurkas, do you not feel the mournful and oppressive air of the Battle of Ostroleka ?" (Hanslick 1848, p. 157). The theoretical framework of Hanslick's criticism is expounded in his book of 1854, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen ( On the Beautiful in Music ), which started as an attack on the Wagnerian aesthetic and established itself as an influential text, subsequently going through many editions and translations in several languages. Other targets for Hanslick's heavy criticism were Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf . Of Tchaikovsky 's Violin Concerto , he accused both Tchaikovsky and

1240-472: The soloist, Adolph Brodsky , of putting the audience "through hell" with music "which stinks to the ear"; he was also lukewarm towards the same composer's Sixth Symphony . Hanslick is noted as one of the first widely influential music critics. While his aesthetics and his criticism are typically considered separately, they are importantly connected. Hanslick was an outspoken opponent of the music of Liszt and Wagner, which broke down traditional musical forms as

Piano Sonata in B minor (Liszt) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1280-454: The sonata means no analytical interpretation has been widely accepted. Some analyses suggest that the Sonata has four movements, although there is no gap between them. Superimposed upon the four movements is a large sonata form structure, although the precise beginnings and endings of the traditional development and recapitulation sections have long been a topic of debate. Others claim a three-movement form, an extended one-movement sonata form, and

1320-449: The time signature changes from 4 to Alla breve , and the second theme marked Allegro energico , consisting of a jagged, forceful motif in octaves, is introduced. This is quickly followed by the third theme, which Liszt characterize as Hammerschlag ('hammer-blow') to describe the single note repetition in the theme. A dialogue ensues, with mounting energy, until reaching the noble Grandioso material in D major. Liszt transforms

1360-544: The two-piano arrangement was something that Liszt had announced but never realized. Leó Weiner made an orchestral arrangement of the Sonata in 1955. The arrangement has not been published and exists only in manuscript form. It was recorded in 2006 by the orchestra of Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar with Nicolás Pasquet conducting, and in 2009 by the North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra under László Kovács  [ hu ] for

1400-469: Was a landmark in the aesthetics of music and outlines much of his artistic and philosophical beliefs on music. Hanslick was a conservative critic and championed absolute music over programmatic music for much of his career. As such, he sided with and promoted the faction of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms in the so-called " War of the Romantics ", often deriding the works of composers such as Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner . Eduard Hanslick

1440-516: Was also defended in Johann Gottfried Walther 's Musicalisches Lexicon (1732) favoring the theorist over the performer. Johann Mattheson 's Der brauchbare Virtuoso (1720) maintained the respect for the traditional " theoretische Virtuosen " (theoretical virtuoso) but also paid tribute to the " virtuosi prattici " (performer virtuoso). Johann Kuhnau in his The Musical Charlatan ( Der musikalische Quack-Salber , 1700) defined

1480-421: Was attacked by Eduard Hanslick who said "anyone who has heard it and finds it beautiful is beyond help". Johannes Brahms reputedly fell asleep when Liszt performed the work in 1853, and it was also criticized by the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein . However, the Sonata drew enthusiasm from Richard Wagner following a private performance of the piece by Karl Klindworth on April 5, 1855. Otto Gumprecht of

1520-521: Was born in Prague (then in the Austrian Empire ), the son of Joseph Adolph Hanslik, a bibliographer and music teacher from a German-speaking family, and one of Hanslik's piano pupils, the daughter of a Jewish merchant from Vienna . At the age of eighteen Hanslick went to study music with Václav Tomášek , one of Prague's renowned musicians. He also studied law at Prague University and obtained

1560-411: Was essential for success, while others believed it was a detriment. The celebrity status obtained by such performers was often fueled by tabloid-like rumors, mythical comparisons, and manipulative marketing tactics. On one such occasion, a London theatre critic referred to a Paganini concert as his "fifth and final concert." Purposefully presenting misinformation to gain publicity for the performers became

1600-535: Was published as a two-piano version under the title Concerto pathétique , shows a thematic relationship to both the Sonata and the later Faust Symphony . Walker claims the quiet ending of the Sonata was an afterthought; the original manuscript contains a crossed-out ending section which would have ended the work in a loud flourish instead. The Sonata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1854 and first performed on 27 January 1857 in Berlin by Hans von Bülow . It

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