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The mutual admiration between Wagner and Liszt went beyond their family
relationships.Wagnerwas in theprocessof reforming theoperahouse,whereas Liszt
was generally seen as a virtuoso, a beast of the concert hall. But Wagner acquired
very early on the conviction that his father-in-law – for Wagner’s second wife was
Liszt’s daughter Cosima –was also toiling to produce themusic of the future.
Liszt recreated on the piano excerpts from
Tannhäuser
or
Rienzi
in paraphrases whose
virtuosity encapsulates the full orchestra within the keyboard, and transcribed key
moments from
Parsifal
,
Der fliegende Holländer
and
Tristan und Isolde
with staggering
skill in sonicmimesis. The
Spinnerlied
from
Der fliegende Holländer
, the spinning chorus
that opens the secondact of theopera,whichLiszt transcribed in 1860 (incorporating
Senta’smotif), and
Isoldens Liebestod
(1867) no longer fall into the category of virtuoso
commentary, but seek to embody Wagner’s musical thought: here Liszt literally
appropriates his colleague’s language.
This quest for pure music in the context of an explicitly narrative, even descriptive
Romanticism, the principal focus of which remained the human passions, is the
central concern of the work with which Roger Muraro opens his Liszt recital, the
Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H.
Liszt composed it in 1855 for the inauguration of the organ of Merseburg Cathedral,
built by Friedrich Ladegast. The work is a tribute to Bach, the letters of whose name
form the motif: B flat, A, C, B natural (which is ‘H’ in the German system of note-
names). Liszt adapted the original organ piece for his own instrument, the piano, or
rather, as the writing appears to confirm, conceived the work in parallel for the two
keyboard instruments, sacred and secular. He revised the score in 1870.
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