F. LISZT - Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse S.160 (Lazar Berman)

LAZAR BERMAN plays "Années de pèlerinage, Première année: Suisse S.160 by FRANZ LISZT.

The "Years of Pilgrimage" suites consist of three volumes, the first of which is about Switzerland. The nine pieces that make up the "Première année: Suisse" were published in 1855 and remain some of Liszt's most popular, but also some of his most important compositional outputs. This recording by Berman was recorded and released in 1977.

COMPOSER/PERFORMER: 00:00
PREFACE: 00:22 (pause to read)

1. CHAPELLE DE GIULLAUME TELL: 00:29
For this depiction of the Swiss struggle for liberation Liszt chooses a motto from Schiller as the caption, "All for one – one for all."

2. AU LAC DE WALLENSTADT: 07:11
This piece was inspired by a one of Lord Byron's poems: "Thy contrasted lake / With the wild world I dwell in is a thing / Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake / Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring."

3. PASTORALE: 10:15

4. AU BORD D'UNE SOURCE: 11:46
This piece was inspired by the following Schiller quote: “In the whispering coolness begins young nature’s play.”

5. ORAGE: 15:17
This piece was inspired by a one of Lord Byron's poems: "But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? / Are ye like those within the human breast? / Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?"

6. VALLEE D'OBERMANN: 19:14
“What do I want? What am I? What do I ask of nature?" were the questions Liszt asked himself with this piece centering around the constant struggle between identity-crisis and a state of confusion about what's real and what isn't. Obermann's valley is about a anxiety-driven journey through Liszt's darkest and most depressing thoughts, in effect cementing this piece as the emotional core and climax of the "Années de pèlerinage - Première année: Suisse". The captions include one from Byron's succeeding canto 97, ("Could I embody and unbosom now / That which is most within me,--could I wreak / My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw / Soul--heart--mind--passions--feelings--strong or weak-- / All that I would have sought, and all I seek, / Bear, know, feel--and yet breathe--into one word, / And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; / But as it is, I live and die unheard, / With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword").

7. EGLOGUE: 33:54
Liszt's caption is from the next canto of the Pilgrimage: "The morn is up again, the dewy morn, / With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, / Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, / And living as if earth contained no tomb!"

8. LES MAL DU PAYS: 36:35

9. LES CLOCHES DE GENÈVE: 42:44
Liszt's caption is from stanza 72, earlier in the Byron's Pilgrimage: “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me”.

Composer: Franz Liszt (1811-1886) - 00:11
Performer: Lazar Berman (1930-2005) - 00:14

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Video made by pianobern69